Robert Pattinson's next film has a number to chase, and it's $13.6 million.

Primetime, the A24 true-crime drama that just premiered in the main competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, is tracking to earn somewhere between $10 million and $15 million in its North American opening weekend, according to a report from Box Office Pro. The film hits theaters September 25.

That range puts it in an odd spot. Clear Nightcrawler, the 2014 Jake Gyllenhaal thriller that's the closest thing to a comparison title here, and Primetime will have done fine. Nightcrawler opened domestically at $10.4 million. Even the low end of Box Office Pro's tracking gets Primetime past that mark.

But there's a bigger number sitting just above it. A24's fifth-biggest opening weekend in North America belongs to Hereditary, which opened at $13.6 million per Box Office Mojo. If Primetime wants to crack the studio's top five debuts of all time, it needs to clear that figure, not just meet its own tracking floor. The film's projected range straddles that line rather than sailing past it, which is exactly the tension driving the conversation right now.

What Primetime has going for it is buzz, and specifically Pattinson buzz. The film follows journalist Chris Hansen as his fixation on To Catch a Predator curdles into something messier, hallucinations, a scandal, a sting operation that goes wrong and threatens to take the whole show down with it. Reactions out of Venice have been warm, with Pattinson's performance drawing particular praise, and the supporting cast getting its share of credit too.

True-crime stories don't get the big-screen treatment often. Studios tend to park this material on streaming, where it's cheaper to make and easier to market around a true-crime-hungry audience already primed by podcasts and documentary series. A24 betting on a theatrical run for a Chris Hansen-adjacent story is itself a small gamble, competition for the Golden Lion notwithstanding.

The Golden Lion race is its own separate story. Whatever happens at Venice won't move the September 25 opening number, but a strong festival showing rarely hurts a specialty release trying to build word of mouth in the three weeks before it actually opens.

So the real test comes in three weeks. Does Primetime land closer to $10 million, which still beats Nightcrawler comfortably, or does it push into that $13-15 million zone where the top-five conversation actually gets interesting? Box Office Pro's tracking will keep moving between now and then, and so will the number CutMirchi is watching.