Ep. 1846 - The New "Primetime" Movie Is Evil Propaganda. Here's Why Hollywood Resents The Truth.

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Why did To Catch a Predator disappear from primetime, and why does Hollywood still resent Chris Hansen?

Matt Walsh 0:00
Chris Hansen's show To Catch a Predator went off the air in two thousand seven, nearly two decades ago. It was never replaced or rebooted for a primetime audience. Outside of a fringe syndicated show, the entire concept disappeared from major networks afterward. Now the idea of setting up a decoy house, wiring it with cameras and luring predators inside so they could be exposed and arrested. Went from extremely profitable to verboden. Basically overnight. If you wanna watch a similar show today, you either need to subscribe to a niche streaming service like True Blue or follow journalists like Alex Rosen, who, while they do brave and important work, have a tenth of the budget and a tenth of the viewership and an even smaller portion of the cultural impact of the old NBC production.
Matt Walsh 0:44
And that's remarkable when you think about it. At its peak, to catch a predator was pulling in more than seven million viewers an episode on average. With some episodes approaching eleven million viewers viewers, uh, its ratings were consistently high. And then after a phony scandal that we'll discuss in a moment, To Catch a Predator was abruptly canceled, much like Cops was during the uh BLM craze. But it was not forgotten, especially in the entertainment industry. The show left apparently a lasting impression among Hollywood elites. Um Bit of a grudge, really, for reasons you could probably imagine. They never forgave Chris Hansen for making the show. To catch a Predator was the closest the industry came to a Harvey Weinstein moment for the worst predators of all, the ones who target children.
Matt Walsh 1:31
And that's why just the past two years there have been two Big budget productions that have been designed from the ground up to destroy Chris Hansen's legacy. And the reputation of his show, which again has not been on the air in nearly twenty years. The first hit job was a production streaming on Paramount Plus called Predators. Uh it's a documentary. And the more recent one, which is out now in theaters, is the Robert Pattinson thriller called Primetime. Which is directed by a guy named Lance Oppenheim. На амедлифом a purely strategic perspective. You do have to wonder why are they doing this now? I mean, why would Hollywood and an up-and-coming director like Lance Oppenheim suddenly be so transfixed by Chris Hansen, who's now sixty-seven years old and far removed from any kind of mainstream celebrity or influence?
Matt Walsh 2:23
Why are they so hell bent on portraying him as a villain along with everyone else who's followed in his footsteps? I mean the timing seems almost random. Even if you know why these people despise him. I have some theories about what's going on here, but but first I want to talk at some length about these two. productions, these two films. We're gonna start with Primetime, which is uh truly a breathtaking film in terms of its abject dishonesty. And in case you haven't seen it, here here's part of the most recent trailer to give you an idea of uh how they're portraying Chris Hansen. Watch.
Unknown 3:02
I want something that matters. No more bottom feeders. All on a whale. Don't you ever just wanna

How does the movie Primetime portray Chris Hansen as unstable and obsessed with ratings?

Unknown 3:11
Bleed on? Maybe what I do is Oh the worse. This could be our greatest segment, yeah. Larva? We're going to him. We don't do that. They come to us. I don't understand what I'm doing here. What you're doing is more than acting. You're cleansing the world. Of an ancient evil. Let's catch us a predator! Who gave you permission to do this?
Matt Walsh 3:40
You have no plan.
Unknown 3:42
I have to put him on television. You're gonna be so proud of me. I want to be a bad person. Your definition of bad and my definition of bad are vastly different. What would have happened?
Matt Walsh 3:59
Now, by the way, that shot of him, uh, if you're if you're watching the the video podcast, the shot of him shirtless, like hunched over, um, is right out of the of the, you know, the Joker film with Joaquin Phoenix. So they're not exactly being subtle about how they're portraying Chris Hansen in this movie. And it was obvious from the trailer the film would present Hansen as a you know, tortured uh unstable figure, which is why he's staring ahead into psychedelic, monochromatic red lighting at one point, as if he's having a mental breakdown.

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