\n\tIt was a packed house inside the theater with the entire cast joining Oppenheim and Pattinson as well as some notable Hollywood auteurs and stars. A few rows back behind the film\u2019s creative team were Ari Aster, Chloe Zhao, Mona Fastvold and Amanda Seyfried (who snuck in after the lights went down before the premiere) and others. At one point, Aster was among a group of attendees that began chanting \u201cLance! Lance! Lance! Lance!\u201d in honor of Oppenheim. <\/p>\n
\n\tShortly before that, Pattinson turned to around to greet his partner, Suki Waterhouse, with a kiss after she had been cheering enthusiastically for the film. Spotted capturing the scene on his iPhone was Jeff Zucker, the former NBC chief who plays himself in the film and hit the Lido in support of Primetime as he oversaw the run of To Catch a Predator as a Dateline franchise.<\/p>\n
\n\tOppenheim\u2019s film was among the most sought after tickets of the first weekend at this year\u2019s festival. In his official director\u2019s statement for Venice, the filmmaker, whose previous works include the series Ren Faire and films Spermworld and Some Kind of Heaven, said he set out to make \u201can institutional portrait of To Catch a Predator at the height of its success.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tHe added: \u201cI wanted to trace the disparate ambitions of people who existed inside this apparatus \u2014 a journalistic crusader, a mercenary TV producer and a wide-eyed Hollywood dreamer \u2014 converging into a moment of crisis. And I liked the idea of revisiting the media culture of the early 2000s, before the news landscape fractured, when a \u2018primetime\u2019 slot felt like a matter of life or death. For some, it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn doing so, he drafted a cast to star opposite Pattinson that included Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers and Bokeem Woodbine. Fun fact: Oppenheim also directed Bridgers\u2019 recently released music video \u201cLost Boys,\u201d the lead single off her new album Lost Weekend. During the film\u2019s standing ovation, after the aforementioned group shouted \u201cLance!\u201d they turned their attention to Bridgers with \u201cPhoebe! Phoebe! Phoebe!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Hollywood Reporter\u2019s David Canfield broke the first interview<\/a> with the film\u2019s creative team. Primetime is loosely adapted by first-time screenwriter Ajon Singh from an Esquire article by Luke Dittrich, and it dramatizes the darkest year in Hansen\u2019s tenure on To Catch a Predator. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI always loved the way To Catch a Predator mixed truth and fiction \u2014 creating this apparatus, blending artifice actors with fake decoy houses and props like the sweet tea and the pepperoni pizza, that would then collide with very, very real stakes,\u201d Oppenheim told Canfield. \u201cHow do you create something that captures the darkest feelings of humanity mixed with the feeling you would get when you\u2019d hear Chris Hansen say one of his all-time great one-liners?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPrimetime marks Pattinson\u2019s first producing credit, and in an interview with THR, he said it marked the first time he boarded a project pre-director through release. And he dove deep into the research to create his version of the investigative journalist\/entertainment news host.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI watched a ton of the show, every episode of his podcast, every interview I could find,\u201d Pattinson explained. \u201cBut I knew from the first read of the script that the character in the movie was going to be a conceptual figure based on the public persona of \u2018Chris Hansen\u2019 as he\u2019s been portrayed and perceived across all mediums and internet culture \u2014 a reconfigured egregore of sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHansen was not involved in making the movie, and he said he declined an invitation to see it because he was asked to sign an NDA. As reported by THR\u2019s Seth Abramovitch, Hansen purchased pre-show advertising<\/a> on every screen showing the A24 release, as a way to promote TruBlu, his streaming network devoted to the same kind of predator investigations.<\/p>\n
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