Robert Pattinson’s Primetime opens to $19.2m, A24’s third-biggest debut
Primetime, the A24 thriller starring Robert Pattinson as To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, took $19.2 million in North America over its opening weekend of 25 to 27 September 2026. That is the third-biggest debut in A24’s history. It came despite loud criticism from the real Hansen. Below: what the numbers show, who bought tickets, and when the film opens outside the US.
By Editorial Team
What we know
- Opening: $19,197,764, fourth place for the weekend, according to The Numbers. The site lists 2,874 cinemas; Variety reported 2,863.
- Place in A24 history: third, according to Variety. Only this summer’s Backrooms ($81.4 million) and Alex Garland’s Civil War ($25.5 million, 2024) opened bigger. It beat Marty Supreme ($15.7 million, 2025).
- Cost: Variety reports the film was made for $15 million.
- Reviews and audiences: 87% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Opening-night audiences gave it a “B” CinemaScore, Variety reports.
- The film: this is director Lance Oppenheim’s first narrative feature. Variety says A24 labels it “inspired by true events” rather than a biopic. It is set in 2006, as To Catch a Predator moved from Dateline NBC into its own primetime slot.
The weekend, day by day
| Day | Gross | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| Friday 25 Sept | $8,494,586 | $8.49m |
| Saturday 26 Sept | $6,116,102 | $14.61m |
| Sunday 27 Sept | $4,587,076 | $19.20m |
These daily figures show a front-loaded opening. Friday brought in 44% of the weekend total, and Saturday was about 28% lower than Friday. That pattern usually means eager fans turned up on day one. The second weekend (2 to 4 October) will show how far word of mouth carries it beyond them.
Is $19.2 million a hit?
For a $15 million original crime drama, analysts quoted by Variety think so. “This is an outstanding opening for an original crime drama,” said David A. Gross, who publishes the FranchiseRe newsletter. Variety says the film is “already well-positioned to turn a theatrical profit.”
There is a caveat. Studios do not keep the full ticket price: Variety notes elsewhere in the same report that cinemas keep about half. The marketing budget has not been made public either. So “profitable” here means well placed against the production cost, not a confirmed profit.
Primetime also came fourth in a crowded weekend. Brad Pitt’s The Heart of the Beast took third with $20 million, but Variety reports that film cost $82 million to make. The re-release of Avengers: Endgame came first, as we reported earlier.
Who bought tickets
A young crowd, according to exit polling cited in a second Variety analysis. It says 69% of opening-weekend viewers were under 30, an age group mostly too young to have watched To Catch a Predator when it aired from 2004 to 2007. More than 75% named Pattinson as their main reason for buying a ticket, according to PostTrak polling.
Pattinson has had a busy year. He appeared in The Drama and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and he is due in Dune: Part III. Variety notes Primetime is his second hit in a row with A24, after The Drama opened to $14.3 million in the spring.
The director and the festival buzz
Oppenheim, 30, is best known for documentaries such as Some Kind of Heaven and HBO’s Ren Faire. According to Variety, Primetime premiered at the Venice Film Festival in early September to a seven-minute standing ovation. There were few Hollywood studio films at Venice this year, and Variety says Primetime became one of the most talked-about titles there. That gave it weeks of positive coverage before it reached US cinemas, backed by a campaign focused mainly on social media rather than a big press tour.
What Chris Hansen says
Hansen, who has said he was not involved in making the film, has been openly critical of it. After watching it, he gave his verdict in a roughly 20-minute video on his YouTube channel on Friday 25 September. Variety quoted him as saying: “It was so bizarre and so in-and-out of reality.” He added: “Obviously, I’m not objective because the character is, you know, me.”
According to the same report, he said about 13 members of his former crew had seen the film, and he called it “a hit piece on me and the series.” Pattinson has said he hoped Hansen would come round. Variety quoted him as saying: “I would hope the amount of inspiration his character has given a lot of people for years is some kind of compliment.”
Variety’s analysis suggests the row may even have helped, keeping the film in the headlines before its release.
When it opens outside the US
- Already open: the US and Canada, from 25 September.
- UK and Ireland: 30 October, according to Digital Spy.
- Australia, New Zealand and Benelux: 29 October, according to LADbible. The outlet quoted a film analyst who linked the delay to A24 handling UK distribution itself.
- Nigeria and West Africa: we could not find an announced release date.
What happens next
- Second weekend (2 to 4 October): after a front-loaded start, the size of the drop will show whether word of mouth matches the reviews.
- International rollout: the late-October openings will show whether a story rooted in American TV travels.
- Awards season: LADbible reports that critics are already calling for Pattinson to get his first Oscar nomination. Oscar nominations will be announced on 21 January 2027.
For more film news, see Movies & TV and International Entertainment.
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