Hollywood spent much of the past year fighting over whether Paramount should be allowed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Now, after a sprawling regulatory battle, the $110 billion deal is approaching its final act — and the debate over whether it will save Hollywood or shrink it isn’t going anywhere.

Almost everyone agrees that the film and TV businesses need more work, and Paramount has promised exactly that under the multistate settlement it reached in order to grow its company earlier this month. The combined studio is expected to release at least 30 theatrical movies annually during its first two years and 32 annually for the following three — while spending an additional $1.5 billion on U.S. film and television production over five years.

Those commitments give the government a means of holding soon-to-be WarnerMount chief David Ellison accountable. But whether you find his promises genuinely reassuring may come down to how much you make. Tom Cruise, for one, is thrilled.

“I think it’s awesome,” Cruise said of Paramount’s plan during a September appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.” The “Mission: Impossible” star predicted Ellison would deliver and argued that increased production would create opportunities across the business. “Production begets production,” Cruise said, projecting 30 movies would eventually become 40.

It’s understandable why someone like Cruise, “Digger” himself(!), could see the deal that way. Paramount is home to a slew of the actor’s most profitable projects, including “Top Gun.” Plus, he separately struck a deal with Warner Bros. in 2024 to develop original and franchise theatrical films.

When Cruise wants to make a movie, the question isn’t generally whether someone will let him do it — but when they can make it happen and for how much. The same can be said of James Cameron: another of Hollywood’s powerful theatrical evangelists who also encouraged the Paramount deal.

“I’m a supporter of it. I know it’s controversial,” Cameron said in April. He explained then that his reasoning was partly rooted in his personal confidence in Ellison, whom Cameron called a “natural born storyteller.” But the director also cautioned against what he saw as a worse alternative.

“Oh, Netflix would be a disaster,” Cameron told The Town months earlier, dismissing the streamer’s theatrical promises during negotiations for its since-scrapped agreement with Warner Bros. as “sucker bait.” Throughout the merger campaign, many industry heavyweights expressed fear that, without Paramount’s backing, the Warner Bros. machine would simply cease to be.

Cameron previously predicted the studio would become little more than another streaming label under Netflix — and that partnership would further hurt large-scale theatrical filmmaking at a time when it’s already contracting. From the director’s vantage point, then, the endangered resource at the center of the Warner Bros. sale wasn’t general production — but the specific kind of costly artistry that Cameron needs studios to support.

Move a few rungs down Hollywood’s economic ladder, however, and two potential employers becoming one can impact the entertainment economy in a radically different way. For an actor looking for their next supporting role, Paramount and Warner Bros. didn’t offer infrastructure so much as opportunity. Similarly, for a writer shopping a script, the two organizations weren’t just brands — but possible buyers.

At the corporate level, the deal promises “synergies” that carry a dismal implication for headcount. It’s safe to say thousands of people will lose their jobs because of this merger, and there are people with real sway in Hollywood who are furious about that. That’s one reason why opposition from some on-screen talent was so intense.

Thousands of filmmakers, performers, and other industry players signed an open letter opposing the acquisition. Its public champions included Joaquin Phoenix, Kristen Stewart, Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Emma Thompson, Jane Fonda, and more. According to Ruffalo and antitrust activist Matt Stoller, even that long list understated the opposition. They said other artists privately supported the campaign but were afraid to attach their names over fears that Paramount could retaliate professionally.

There is no evidence the studio plans to retaliate against merger opponents. But the anxiety about the career repercussions of speaking out reveals something important about Hollywood’s class system. Paramount can’t meaningfully impact Cruise or Cameron in the same way they could derail the career of a character actor playing a supporting role in a buzzy HBO series — or an indie filmmaker looking to make the ambitious leap into blockbusters.

That doesn’t make either Cruise or Cameron’s optimism about the business of storytelling insincere. But it does demonstrate how they experience the same industry from an unusually secure position. Suffice to say, a bigger studio can look like an even bigger partner when they need you, too.

Celebrities and working-class showbiz professionals who publicly opposed the merger were making a different calculation. Some were famous enough to absorb the risk, while others decided that, for them, speaking up was worth whatever consequences might follow. They didn’t stop the deal, of course. But the protests weren’t pointless either.

The final merger settlement looks considerably different from the future Paramount originally proposed. That includes enforceable agreements with penalties for the studio that someone will have to investigate if those infractions happen. Power isn’t distributed equally in Hollywood or in any industry, but neither is the ability to imagine a different future from the one being forced down regulators’ throats.

Just because you have less leverage doesn’t mean you don’t count, and enough voices can change what comes next. Even with WarnerMount imminent, paychecks won’t run it. People will.

Chris Hansen doesn’t have to like “Primetime” to advertise alongside it.

“The only thing I like is the commercial that we put together for TruBlu,” Hansen said on his podcast last week after finally seeing A24’s controversial new film — crucially, inspired by him.

Ads for the streaming service Hansen co-founded do indeed run in theaters before director Lance Oppenheim’s feverish “To Catch a Predator” dramatization. That means the real Hansen gets to introduce himself before “Primetime” star Robert Pattinson does it for him.

“They make him look like a character in a horror film,” Hansen said on his show. “There’s all kinds of green hue on his face. He’s obviously having a mental breakdown.”

Hansen publicly contemplated legal action over the summer and declined an advance screening invite amid a dispute with A24 over an NDA he was asked to sign. He ultimately watched “Primetime” with a public audience in Times Square just days before it opened nationally, then discussed it with Fox News’ Jesse Watters in a special episode of “Have a Seat with Chris Hansen.”

By then, he sounded considerably less inclined to take the studio to court.

“I’m not sure that I’m eager to do something,” Hansen said, describing his lawyers as more enthusiastic. “I don’t want to turn this into the movie that Chris Hansen doesn’t want you to see.”

“You can go see it and make up your own mind,” he continued. “And I’ll use it to my benefit for all the great projects and things that we have in the works.”

Among them: “I’m Chris Hansen,” a documentary made with Hansen’s full cooperation that he said his agents are already shopping to platforms beyond TruBlu. The former face of “To Catch a Predator” called that “pretty good timing” even before “Primetime” opened to $19.2 million domestically — marking A24’s third-biggest opening weekend ever.

As Oppenheim’s feature reached theaters, Hansen’s YouTube channel gained about 11,000 subscribers and recorded roughly 849,000 views. That’s up 79 percent from the previous weekend, according to Social Blade. (The account also posted twice as many videos.)

That traffic surge suggests increased attention on Hansen because of “Primetime,” not approval of his public persona or Pattinson’s portrayal. Still, by welcoming an objectively bigger audience despite having less control over his own image, Hansen is capitalizing on the moment.

“I don’t know if the real Chris Hansen exists anymore,” Oppenheim recently said of his muse on “The Big Picture” podcast. “I think the man has become the meme at this point.”

How Chris Hansen Sells Chris Hansen

On the celebrity-greeting app Cameo, Hansen’s iconic “Why don’t you have a seat?” is less likely to imply you’re under investigation than it is to inform you that you’ve been sent a gift.

To celebrate her husband’s 2024 documentary “Spermworld,” Oppenheim’s wife ordered a video from Hansen. Oppenheim says he showed the clip to Pattinson, who also produced “Primetime,” and that it helped shape their highly stylized portrait. Of course, even a joke like that depends on Hansen’s much-debated authority.

“The show works because of Chris Hansen,” filmmaker David Osit, who unpacked Hansen’s legacy in his own 2025 documentary, “Predators,” told IndieWire. “There’s an argument to be made that if he didn’t have that voice, could the show have worked at all?”

“To Catch a Predator” began as a segment on “Dateline NBC” and became a recurring series of investigations within the program. The concept had plenty of critics in the mid-2000s, but Hansen’s composure gave viewers a clear guide through some truly disturbing encounters.

Each sting operation saw a man arrive expecting to meet a child for sex. Instead, a reporter appeared with a printed chat transcript and a camera crew — ready to deliver some good ol’ gotcha journalism — with the reassuring knowledge that no real victim was there. Audiences could experience an accusation, a confrontation, and the satisfaction of seeing a predator exposed: all before the late local news. And Hansen himself was synonymous with the show.

“He’s just a conduit for us to feel comfortable with something that’s extremely uncomfortable, sitting with the darkest urges that a human can have and finding a way to laugh at them,” Osit said, describing “To Catch a Predator” as a “way to be entertained by the worst thing that can happen to a child” and the prospect of that being averted becoming a kind of catharsis.

As the media landscape itself has become more slippery, Hansen has endeavored to translate that contentious formula to YouTube videos, podcast episodes, and business ventures like TruBlu. He’s also leaned into acting like a meme, profiting from services like Cameo that literally sell his image as a vigilante with a camera crew. Yes, some fans want more of his “enterprise reporting,” as Hansen calls it. But others just want to hear his catchphrase.

“There’s a dark humor side to this,” Hansen said on his podcast. “I lean into that.”

“Primetime” turns that hunger for attention into a key part of its characterization, and however unflattering, Oppenheim’s film does elevate Hansen’s reach by making it a theatrical event. As Ryan Lattanzio observed in IndieWire’s review, one scene sees Pattinson’s Hansen searching the National Enquirer’s website for his own name after receiving threats from paparazzi to expose an affair. Finding nothing, the fictional Hansen seems relieved and… disappointed?

It’s a revealing piece of dramatization, and Oppenheim’s film creates a similar tension for Hansen to both endure and exploit now. Crawling Times Square to personally ask moviegoers what they thought of him in “Primetime,” Hansen simultaneously disputed the film’s impression and used it for fresh content and publicity. He’s been working that strategy for a while now; just look at his recreation of Pattinson’s viral kitchen photo for social media — with Hansen posing in a striped track jacket and camouflage pants. Or listen to the introduction he gave himself this spring at CrimeCon, where he joked about being mistaken for the actor.

The association has obvious value. After all, it was Pattinson’s appeal that really drove audiences to “Primetime,” and even knowing the caricature that he created has been called monstrous, Hansen is working to ensure that influence transfers back to him whenever possible.

Two Ways to Catch “To Catch a Predator”

“To Catch a Predator” stopped airing in late 2007, and Hansen himself hasn’t been at a major TV network since 2013. Still, his name, voice, adversarial routine, and professional history travel with him — effectively establishing an association with institutional journalism anywhere Hansen goes.

“Primetime” gets at the contradiction inherent in that legacy, highlighting what made Hansen’s work both entertaining to watch and morally alarming. How Oppenheim chooses to portray that paradox and whether his movie delivers more of an indictment or an endorsement of Hansen is up for interpretation and debate, but the real question “Primetime” is getting at is still vital today.

“I find Chris Hansen to be one of the least interesting elements of the story,” “Predators” director Osit told IndieWire. As a documentarian, Osit’s interest lies in the people watching “To Catch a Predator” — himself included. The 2025 film, which has become a critical benchmark in current discussions about “Primetime,” uses archival footage and interviews with Hansen, the show’s “decoy” actors, and crew members to examine what the original broadcasts made easier to overlook.

“I would watch the raw footage and then compare it with the edited show and feel a complete difference both emotionally and dramaturgically in what I was seeing,” Osit said. “What’s being created here or what’s being hidden?”

The distinction is more than a matter of tone. “To Catch a Predator” worked with the online group Perverted Justice to arrange encounters, then coordinated with police who could arrest the men after Hansen confronted them. A news production was helping create the events it covered, and the humiliation they broadcast preceded any legal determination of guilt. That gave viewers the reward of resolution — regardless of what happened to the case afterward.

Osit’s documentary makes those methods available for examination without inventing a private life for Hansen that explains them. The real “To Catch a Predator” host has repeatedly complained about not being consulted for “Primetime,” and that continued pursuit of access speaks to the central documentary question in “Predators”: “What happens when capital gets involved, when eyeballs get involved, when other people get involved, when other motivations get involved, how much can our good motivations bend?” Osit said.

In real life, the most troubling test for Hansen came in November 2006, when Texas prosecutor Bill Conradt Jr. committed suicide as police entered his home — with NBC personnel outside.

Conradt had not come to the location set by Perverted Justice, as revealed in the Esquire reporting that became source material for “Primetime.” Journalist Luke Dittrich further examined whether the production had compromised the police’s decision-making. The network disputed allegations that they had improperly influenced the investigation, and Hansen maintains that stance today.

Oppenheim nevertheless turns the catastrophic outcome of the Conradt story into the climax of “Primetime.” Pouring rain, electric anxiety, and desperate attempts to coax the accused outside so he can be apprehended by Hansen and police play like the culmination of a nightmare. Also… “Batman.”

That lens gives Oppenheim considerable power over how audiences encounter Hansen’s history on TV, but it also affords the real person movie-star credibility, for better or worse. With screenwriter Ajon Singh taking some factual liberties as well (even the flesh-and-blood Jeff Zucker can tell you “To Catch a Predator” was never up against “Lost” for ratings), “Primetime” makes Hansen’s conduct look even more outrageous and, for many, that may prove even more enticing.

“The show mystified people and entranced people,” Osit said, noting that using its appeal to sell a movie made commercial sense and that he had immense respect for Oppenheim personally. Still, he said, “Primetime” now “lives in the same space” as the original series. He also saw that tension in A24’s marketing, which recreated various Hansen memes and showed off a branded version of his tie.

After the Credits, More Chris

Hansen’s influence online is visible beyond his own social media accounts. In 2026, the digital world is crowded with amateur predator hunters borrowing the “To Catch a Predator” format, sometimes with dangerous results. Reporting on these groups has documented violence and interference with investigations, as well as disastrous allegations of false accusations.

Oppenheim is doing something different, but his interpretation also helps shape the version of Hansen that future imitators encounter. An almost cartoonish rendition can challenge the reporter’s authority and still produce another compelling character to follow. “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Inventing Anna” illustrate that tension: Jordan Belfort’s fraud and Anna Delvey’s deceptions become the very material that makes them entertaining protagonists. Viewers don’t have to approve of their conduct to enjoy their audacity. Likewise, “Primetime” can make Hansen look reckless without making him less magnetic.

American University documentary scholar Patricia Aufderheide had not seen “Primetime” when she spoke to IndieWire, but doesn’t believe Hansen’s approval was a prerequisite for making it. “I don’t think that somebody who writes a review of a book needs to check with the people who wrote the book before they publish the review,” she said.

The narrative freedom Oppenheim is enjoying, however, does carry an obligation to viewers.

“There’s an ethical responsibility to ask yourself the questions, to do the research, to want to be in good faith with your audience,” she said. Whether “Primetime” clarifies Hansen’s legacy or further complicates it, the movie’s inventions can contribute to powerful ideas about his work.

Discussing how stories influence audiences generally, social psychologist Melanie Green explained that knowing something is fictionalized doesn’t prevent it from feeling plausible. And when it comes to docu-fiction and biopics, additional research can help educate — but learning that a scene never happened doesn’t necessarily dismantle the impact it made.

“Even if people quibble about a certain fact, you formed this impression of this person or this event in an emotionally vulnerable state, and that tends to stick with us,” she said.

It’s worth noting that Oppenheim has encountered the clash between scrutiny and self-promotion before. Discussing HBO’s “Ren Faire,” his 2025 documentary about the struggle for control of the Texas Renaissance Festival, he told the International Documentary Association that its domineering founder, George Coulam, was “enjoying his notoriety.” Coulam also died by suicide last year.

Those situations are decidedly different, but share a certain spirit. “Primetime” seems likely to leave Hansen less credible, and yet more influential. He hasn’t ruled out suing, but his ongoing presence in the media space could reflect poorly on Oppenheim — who, also this fall, returns to the documentary space with “You Can See Everything,” his Elizabeth Holmes documentary co-directed by Nathan Fielder.

For now, Hansen gets more exposure, Oppenheim gets another subject, and viewers are still stuck figuring out what to believe every time they agree to have a seat.

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