Robert Pattinson spent years being chased by screaming fans through a fictional forest. Now he is the one doing the chasing, through a fake house, for a studio audience.
Primetime dramatises the rise of To Catch a Predator, the NBC format in which men arranged to meet minors who were in fact adult decoys. The show ran for years and drew enormous audiences. Television had discovered that the worst thing a person could do also made excellent lower-third graphics.
Is it possible to hunt predators with a camera crew and a ratings target? The format proved it was, and the ratings proved it paid.
The film is set to tell that story with a leading man whose face was built for a teen poster, now asked to look solemn while a door creaks open. Hollywood has found a way to make moral seriousness look like a season premiere.
Primetime is a film about a show about predators. Somewhere a network executive is already asking whether the sequel can be a reality series.