Robert Pattinson pulled young crowds to A24’s true-crime thriller “Primetime,” which opened to $19.2 million even as real-life host Chris Hansen dismissed the film as detached from reality.
The A24 release took in $19.2 million from 2,863 North American venues and finished fourth on the domestic chart, trailing only a Disney “Avengers: Endgame Encore” rerun, Sony’s “Resident Evil” reboot, and Paramount’s “The Heart of the Beast,” Variety reported.
That haul marks the third-best opening weekend in A24 history and lands well ahead of the film’s $15 million production cost, putting the studio in strong position to turn a profit on a tough-subject drama rather than another runaway franchise installment.
Exit polls and festival heat explain the jump. More than three-quarters of ticket buyers named Pattinson as their top reason for showing up, and 69 percent of the opening-weekend audience was under 30.
PostTrak found that more than 75 percent of moviegoers cited the “Twilight” heartthrob-turned-leading man as the No. 1 draw. He is also on screens this year in other major titles and is filming “The Batman: Part II” in London, with “Dune: Part III” still ahead.
His recent A24 pairing with Zendaya, “The Drama,” opened to $14.3 million domestically in the spring. “Primetime” beat that number and outpaced several other specialty launches, including 2025’s “Marty Supreme” at $15.7 million.
Pattinson, 40, has joked that he is Gen Z and brushed off his birth year as something that “doesn’t matter.” Jennifer Lawrence, his “Die My Love” co-star, needled him over it during a Vanity Fair lie-detector segment.
“I believe that you believe you’re Gen Z,” Lawrence said.
The joke tracks with the crowd that actually bought tickets. Nearly seven in ten opening-weekend patrons were under 30, giving A24 a second full-fledged youth event this year after the sleeper “Backrooms,” which opened to $81.4 million on a $10 million budget and climbed toward $400 million worldwide.
The movie casts Pattinson as Dateline NBC journalist Chris Hansen, the face of “To Catch a Predator,” which aired from 2004 to 2007. Hansen spoke out before seeing it, criticized the “overly dramatic” portrayal, and said the film is not a literal account of his career.
After watching, he called the project “so bizarre” and “detached from reality,” and he questioned the studio’s “motive.” That fight was already public when Hansen pressed Hollywood’s motives as release approached.
A24 never needed him to bless the marketing. The dispute itself produced headlines, and the studio leaned on a social-media-heavy campaign aimed at younger viewers rather than a traditional press blitz. Pattinson did limited interviews and did not stage a stunt at the Las Vegas Sphere.
Earlier coverage captured how messy the rollout became for the real journalist, including when Hansen floated legal action while the studio controlled access to the cut.
Critics still backed the finished film at 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. CinemaScore moviegoers gave it a “B.” FranchiseRe publisher David A. Gross called the reception solid for the material.
“Considering the tough subject material, the audience score is good,” Gross said. “This is a hit.”
“Primetime” bowed at the Venice Film Festival to strong reviews and a seven-minute standing ovation on the Lido, building word of mouth before the wider rollout. Pattinson appeared there even while keeping the broader press tour short.
His response to Hansen’s complaints at that premiere became part of the pre-release noise, including the moment Pattinson answered Hansen’s objections as the festival buzz peaked.
Director Lance Oppenheim, 30, made his narrative-feature debut after documentaries including “Some Kind of Heaven” and HBO’s “Ren Faire.” Days after the Venice launch, he and comedian Nathan Fielder unveiled a closely held Elizabeth Holmes documentary, “You Can See Everything,” at Telluride, an extra jolt of attention around his name as “Primetime” headed into theaters.
Hansen, for his part, kept finding ways to stay in the frame of a movie he did not control, at one point as Hansen turned the controversy toward his own streaming efforts.
A24’s recent specialty openers set a clear bar. Alex Garland’s 2024 “Civil War” opened to $25.5 million. “Primetime” came in below that figure but above “Marty Supreme” and “The Drama,” and it did so with a star-driven, youth-skewed audience and a budget lean enough to make the weekend count.
Hollywood can take a real predator-hunting journalist, build a prestige thriller he calls detached from reality, and still cash the opening weekend when star power and young ticket buyers show up.
