The latest trailer for upcoming A24 movie Primetime has dropped. It stars Robert Pattinson as NBC’s Chris Hanson and explores the success of his show To Catch a Predator, and I have to admit, the movie looks bonkers. It looks like another example of great filmmaking from the indie studio and director Lance Oppenheim. Still, I can’t help but question why we need this film.
The Subject Matter Is Gross
The movie, one of quite a few from A24 on the 2026 movie schedule, is a biopic of sorts. It follows the behind-the-scenes story of how Chris Hanson’s show was spun out of Dateline into its own wildly successful show on NBC in the mid-’00s. Pattinson is joined by Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, and Phoebe Bridgers in telling the story. Judging by the trailer, it’ll be a pretty good look not only into how the show became a success, but how the show was conceived and produced.
The movie, no matter how good it is, is going to be a tough watch. Namely because the subject matter is just so horrible. Sex crimes against children, most everyone will agree, are among the worst crimes any of us want to ever think about. 2 hours of watching people both attempt to commit those crimes, and the producers of the show celebrating their success (as one scene in the trailer seems to clearly show), isn’t going to be “fun.” Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
That Era Of TV Was Pretty Gross, Too
A while back, I wrote about how I think shows like To Catch a Predator were just too exploitative. I, like many others, was enthralled with the show at first. Watching a journalist go after child sex predators seemed like a noble effort. Sure, these guys' lives were ruined, but it’s not like anyone is ever going to feel sorry for despicable people who target young teenagers for sex. They’re gross, and what they are doing is gross. Plus it was great TV. It seemed like a win-win, right?
Eventually I started to sour on the whole concept. That show, along with a lot of reality TV in that era, got really exploitative. And while it wasn’t as gross as the crimes being attempted on To Catch a Predator, it still made me feel pretty icky to gawk at this kind of behavior and these men. I felt the same way about other reality shows from the era, like Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Intervention, and Hoarders. The TV viewers (including me) were meant to be entertained by watching people at their lowest moments, and I finally had to admit that watching this kind of stuff wasn’t good for me, and probably not good for society writ large.
I’ve felt conflicted about A24 movies in the past, even as recently as the other Robert Pattinson A24 movie that came out this year, The Drama, and honestly, I thought the movie presented the controversial material in a really good way, and it is a great movie. Maybe Primetime will be the same.
