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- From a $40 Cameo to a Feature Film
- Turning a Reporter into a Cultural Symbol
- When Vigilantism Meets Television Spectacle
- Handling Real Harm and Ethical Responsibility
- “You Can See Everything”: A Long, Secret Collaboration
- One Filmmaker, Two Styles, One Team
- Creative Risks: Redefining the Biopic
- Audience Reaction and the Power of Ambiguity
- Personal Stakes and a Rapid Creative Turn
- On Secrecy and What’s Next
Lance Oppenheim has quietly shifted from filming the overlooked to dramatizing the famous, releasing two very different films weeks apart. One reimagines a TV icon as a mythic figure. The other quietly follows a notorious founder for years, kept secret until a stunned Telluride audience saw it. Both mark a new chapter in a filmmaker known for spotlighting eccentric, complicated people.
From a $40 Cameo to a Feature Film
Oppenheim credits a small, surprising purchase for igniting his narrative debut. His wife bought a Cameo from Chris Hansen for $40. That brief, playful message lodged in his mind.
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He revisited Hansen’s long-running television persona and the cultural echoes it left. The Cameo felt like proof that the public version of Hansen had become its own thing. Soon after, Oppenheim showed the clip to Robert Pattinson.
Pattinson’s team introduced Oppenheim to a script that riffed on “To Catch a Predator.” He read it at 1:30 a.m., convinced that the idea matched the strange, memetic version of Hansen he had been thinking about.
Turning a Reporter into a Cultural Symbol
Oppenheim did not set out to write a straight biopic. He wanted to transmit how the internet and pop culture have transformed a living person into an icon.
“I wanted the internet’s version of Chris Hansen,” he says, aiming to capture how myth and media can overwrite reality.
That led to a film that blends reportage and imagination. Robert Pattinson’s role is described as a composite performance. He channels multiple iterations of Hansen: the TV host, the podcast guest, the cameo persona, the satire.
- Oppenheim calls the approach “docu-fantasia.”
- He sought emotional truth over strict historical fidelity.
- The film explores how relentless exposure to darkness can alter a person.
When Vigilantism Meets Television Spectacle
The movie frames Hansen as more than a journalist. It treats certain sequences like a study of performative justice.
Oppenheim draws a line from ancient public punishments to modern sting television. That lineage, he suggests, explains the unsettling appeal of shows that put alleged offenders on display.
Pattinson’s performance is described as part superhero, part showman. In the staged confrontations, Hansen becomes a figure with control and purpose. Away from the sting, he is conflicted and haunted.
Handling Real Harm and Ethical Responsibility
The film does not ignore the human cost. One storyline centers on the death of a man apprehended during a sting.
Oppenheim says his focus was less on verdicts than on consequences. He wanted viewers to feel how this work affects those who carry it out and those who are swept up in it.
He rejected typical “where-are-they-now” epilogues. Instead, he preferred to leave audiences with vivid moments and encourage further research.
He points viewers toward other reporting and documentaries for fuller context.
“You Can See Everything”: A Long, Secret Collaboration
While finishing his narrative film, Oppenheim was also co-directing a long-form nonfiction project with Nathan Fielder. That film centers on Elizabeth Holmes and was shot covertly over four years.
Keeping the production quiet was deliberate. The filmmakers didn’t want their subject to alter behavior because of cameras.
- The crew was deliberately small—about seven to eight people.
- They relied on the same core team across both films.
- They prioritized adaptability: crew members would drop everything when a shoot surfaced.
The surprise Telluride screening created a rare, communal discovery experience. Audiences entered without prior expectation and left debating what they had seen.
One Filmmaker, Two Styles, One Team
Both projects share key collaborators. Oppenheim’s longtime cinematographer and composer worked on both films.
Despite shared personnel, the films diverge drastically. One is scripted, theatrical, and surreal. The other is observational and quietly intrusive.
Oppenheim positions the two as experiments in how to depict complex, public figures. He calls one a creative narrative and the other an extended nonfiction study.
Creative Risks: Redefining the Biopic
Rather than a conventional life story, Oppenheim pushed toward a subjective, immersive form. He wants to convey the inner logic of his characters.
He describes his method as less about authorized biography and more about expressive interpretation. That approach has philosophical roots in creative nonfiction and certain novelistic styles.
Audience Reaction and the Power of Ambiguity
Telluride reactions confirmed the filmmakers’ instincts. Viewers argued in the lobby about what moments meant and who was being shown.
Oppenheim says that disagreement is the point. If a film provokes debate, it has opened space for multiple readings.
He prefers ambiguity over didacticism. The aim is to unsettle and stimulate curiosity.
Personal Stakes and a Rapid Creative Turn
These projects arrived at a turbulent time in Oppenheim’s life. His son was born five days before production on the narrative film began.
That timing made the projects feel like milestones, both creatively and personally. The filmmaker cites influences who pursue big tonal shifts across films.
- He admires Jonathan Demme and Steven Soderbergh for their range.
- He wants audiences to remember the films and the teams behind them.
Oppenheim repeatedly credits his collaborators for the films’ reach. Without that crew, he says, the work would not exist.
On Secrecy and What’s Next
When asked whether another secret project exists, Oppenheim declined to reveal details. He joked that a project stops being secret if he talks about it.
For now, the two films stand as a pair of experiments. They test how public figures are represented and how audiences react when expectations are upended.
