Chris Hansen has taken his fight with A24 into the theater itself. He bought advertisements before every screening of Primetime, turning the movie’s release into another front in a dispute that has been building for weeks.
That timing matters because Primetime is the new film with Robert Pattinson playing Hansen, and the trailer had already drawn praise for Pattinson’s impression of him. Now the release is not just about a performance on screen. It is also about Hansen making sure audiences walking in know he is still objecting to the project.
Hansen told TMZ that A24 asked him to sign an NDA to attend a private screening of Primetime. He said he saw the paperwork as an attempt to make him give up control over his own story, saying it would have meant he was being asked to “sign away the rights to my life.” He also said flatly that “there was no way in hell I was going to sign that.”
A studio source gave a different account, calling the document a “standard A24 screening NDA” and saying legal sent it to Hansen “one week before he was scheduled to screen.” The source said he had a chance to send it back with comments after speaking with his lawyer, but did not do so. That disagreement is the heart of the fight: Hansen says he was being pushed to surrender rights tied to his life, while the studio side describes a routine screening agreement with room for revisions.
Clause 5 of the alleged NDA is the part Hansen shared publicly, and it is the part that sharpened the dispute. The language says the recipient releases the company and related parties from claims and demands arising out of or in connection with the project, including the recipient’s screening of the project. Hansen’s reading of that language is what led him to reject it and later to show up at the preview expecting he could just walk in.
He did not walk in, and the studio-side account says he already had been told what was required if he wanted access. Instead of signing, he later turned the episode into a public protest by buying ads before every screening of Primetime. The size and placement of those ads have not been disclosed, but the move itself makes the point clearly enough: Hansen wants each screening to carry a reminder that the man portrayed on screen is still contesting how the film reached the screen.
For now, the practical next step is simple. If Hansen wants to see Primetime, he will have to pay for a seat in a theater like anyone else. The broader fight, though, is not over a ticket. It is over who gets to control the story behind a film that puts his life back in public view.
