Primetime Rotten Tomatoes odds: traders predict a Tomatometer rating of 85.8%

Primetime, a new fictional drama inspired by Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator, hits theaters Friday, Sept. 25, and Kalshi traders are forecasting an extremely warm critical reception and a “Fresh” Rotten Tomatoes score.

The current market forecast for final Tomatometer score is priced at 85.8% for the new Robert Pattinson film, which currently holds a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

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Directed by Lance Oppenheim, Primetime stars Pattinson as a fictionalized version of Chris Hansen and examines the rise of and controversy surrounding To Catch a Predator.

To Catch a Predator featured sting operations in which adults suspected of seeking sexual encounters with minors were lured to designated houses, where Hansen confronted them on camera. The show worked with the online watchdog group Perverted-Justice and, in later installments, local law enforcement agencies.

The film also generated controversy before its release. Deadline reported last month that Hansen was disinvited from an advance screening after refusing to sign an NDA. Hansen told Fox News that the NDA the studio requested from him would’ve required him “to sign away my rights to my name, image, and brand essentially, as well as any potential legal rights that would come out of the movie. I couldn’t sign that, so they didn’t show me the film.”

Hansen has criticized the circumstances surrounding the film, but critics have largely responded positively to Primetime.

Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com wrote that Primetime offers an interesting mix as “a media satire, a thriller, and a horror movie” and praised Pattison’s chilling performance.

“His Hansen shows no signs of having struggled with the implications of his job,” Seitz wrote. “In fact, one of the film’s unsettling constants is the gleam of anticipation in Hansen’s otherwise lightless eyes before he steps into the space where the sting is being conducted and lets the target sit slack-jawed in bafflement before quoting their own words from transcripts.”

TheWrap’s Ben Croll praised the film's nightmarish recreation of early-2000s television.

“The whole thing plays like a nightmare of early 2000s broadcast – an Adult Swim one-off half-remembered from a night fully stoned,” Croll wrote. “It certainly builds to a feverish pitch.”

Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri praised Pattinson for going beyond an impersonation of Hansen.

“Pattinson plays him like a man whose voice and demeanor could change at will, an ambitious morass of contradictions,” Ebiri wrote. “It’s a stunning demonstration of the actor’s range, and watching the film you can’t imagine any other performer of his generation pulling it off.”

Other critics were less enthusiastic about the film's deliberately grimy aesthetic and its approach to the source material.

Time’s Stephanie Zacharek wrote that the grainy look of the film, designed to mimic early-2000s television, made the experience feel disconnected and jagged.

“[Oppenheim] and cinematographer David Bolen have given the picture a grubby, grainy look, including sections that mimic early-2000s-style video recording,” Zacharek wrote. “If you feel dirty watching it, that’s by design – and if you enjoy feeling dirty, that’s your choice.”

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave the movie two out of five stars. He praised Pattinson's performance but argued that the story surrounding the show's production ultimately fell flat.

“For a while, some intriguing conspiratorial possibilities present themselves,” Bradshaw wrote. “But none of that leads anywhere.”

The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager argued that the film falls into the same exploitative tendencies it criticizes in To Catch a Predator.

“Primetime, a fictional drama about the series and its star, certainly takes a stance on that matter – and in the bluntest, most obvious, and repetitive way imaginable,” Schager wrote. “Arriving on the heels of 2025’s documentary Predators, Lance Oppenheim’s film is almost shockingly one-note, condemning with a crudeness that puts its subject’s methods to shame.”

Despite those negative reviews, Primetime currently holds a 91% Tomatometer score. Kalshi traders are forecasting that the score will settle lower at 85.8%.

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