“A24 wanted me to sign away my rights.” That’s the crux of Chris Hansen’s explanation for why he turned down watching an early screening of Primetime, the upcoming movie where the former To Catch a Predator host is portrayed by Robert Pattinson.
In an interview with Fox News, Hansen recalled being just moments away from screening Primetime when he rejected signing what he deemed a “very restrictive agreement. I had never seen anything quite like it.”
“The lawyers at A24 wanted me to sign away my rights to my name, image and brand, essentially, as well as any potential legal rights that would come out of the movie,” Hansen claimed.
“I couldn’t sign that, so they didn’t show me the film. I went all the way over there. … But who’s going to sign something like that?”
Hansen said his attorneys had reviewed the NDA before he went to A24 to screen the film. Nevertheless, Hansen ultimately balked at signing it.
The former host added, “If you look at the trailer, obviously it’s a very dramatized version. They had told me that it’s fictionalized in many aspects. I know other people have seen it who didn’t sign an NDA, and yet they wanted me to sign it.”
But The Hollywood Reporter’s sources say “Hansen was asked to sign a standard NDA a week in advance that all preview audiences must sign in order to watch an unreleased A24 film. It’s mostly to prevent spoilers and protect the studio’s IP.”
(Editor’s note: IGN writers, including myself, are frequently asked by studios to sign such NDAs before screenings or set visits, which generally involve agreeing to a specific embargo date and time for your coverage to run.)
Directed by Lance Oppenheimer, Primetime opens in theaters on September 25, 2026.
