The Pitt heads to court

“I am deeply gratified by the Court of Appeal decision and look forward to discovery and to our case, which affects writers, creators and their families and estates, being presented to a jury,” Sherri Criton said in a statement to Variety Wednesday. 

The case hinges on a clause in Crichton’s 1994 contract with WBTV. The “1994 Agreement” prevents WB from making “any and all theatrical releases, any and all sequels, remakes, spin-offs and/or other derivative works (including electronic media, interactive and the like)” without the mutual agreement of Crichton and/or his estate. It was an uncommon deal, but Jurassic Park had recently made Crichton Hollywood’s most powerful and in-demand author. In 2020, Roadrunner argues, Warner Bros. Television began development of an ER reboot and pitched it to Sherri in 2022. After some bargaining, the opinion states, she declined to participate. The show was then reformulated as The Pitt without her involvement. 

The court found “clear and numerous similarities between” the shows, including fast-paced, “frequently incoherent” medical jargon and cross-cutting sequences wherein various medical personnel interrupt procedures, “layering on crisis after crisis.” The opinion also found similarities in the shows’ gnarly depictions of medical gore, exhausted doctors prone to emotional outbursts, and, rudely, “a young doctor, fresh from medical school and incompetent.” The defendants include WBTV, Wyle, and executive producers John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, all of whom worked on ER. They argue The Pitt has “different characters, settings, visuals, styles, music, timing, and more” and that the similarities are due to Noah Wyle starring on two “medical dramas set in emergency departments.” Ultimately, the court will decide if a show set in an emergency room can exist without being derivative of ER. 

Sherri filed suit in 2024 and accused Wells of a “personal betrayal.” For Wyle’s part, on a recent episode of Amy Poehler’s Good One (per The Guardian), he said they moved forward with the show after Roadrunner passed because they had already been developing a medical show for HBO Max. He says, “Once we uncoupled ourselves from that IP, it suddenly liberated the storytelling.”