Former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen is bickering with the producers of Primetime, the Robert Pattinson-starring film about the NBC series, over an alleged NDA he refused to sign in order to preview the movie.
Hansen appeared on Fox News on Thursday
to discuss the incident, claiming he went to the A24 offices in New York to watch Primetime ahead of the film’s Venice Film Festival premiere next month. However, prior to viewing, Hansen was presented with a non-disclosure agreement that his legal team — upon previewing the NDA — advised him not to sign.
“The lawyers at A24 wanted me to sign away my rights to my name, image and, you know, brand essentially, as well as any potential legal rights that would come out of the movie,” Hansen claimed on Jesse Watters Primetime. “I couldn’t sign that, so they didn’t show me the film. I went all the way up there… It was a very restrictive agreement.”
However, a source close to the film tells Rolling Stone that Hansen was asked to a standard NDA that all preview audiences must sign to watch an unreleased film in an effort to prevent spoilers and protect the studio’s IP. The source adds that the NDA did not require Hansen to “sign away” the rights to his name, brand or image. Still, Hansen refused to sign the NDA, and thus did not view Primetime, the source confirms. (Hansen did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the source’s claims.)
“I haven’t seen the film,” Hansen told Fox News. “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.”
Hansen added that he has “no financial stake in this film,” nor was he approached by the production prior to filming; he found out about the movie once cameras started rolling. “I’m just a working reporter, and I’m not learned in the sophisticated ways of Hollywood. But I find stuff out,” Hansen said. “I’ve been an investigative reporter for four decades, so I knew this was going on.”
Despite the NDA incident, Hansen told Watters, “I get a call today saying, ‘Well, you know, everybody’s concerned. They want you to be happy with the film.’ Well, then why didn’t you tell me about it when you started shooting the film?”
Hansen will now have to wait until Primetime arrives in theaters on September 25 to see how Pattinson portrayed him.
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