The claim doesn’t come out of nowhere. The Pitt was created by ER alum R. Scott Gemmill, and produced by ER showrunner John Wells. Its star and executive producer, Noah Wyle, also put in his hours at the former’s fictional Cook County General Hospital. But Crichton’s widow, Sherri, is claiming that the similarities between the two series go deeper than their personnel. “Sherri Crichton was thrilled that the original team behind ER wanted to do a reboot and was shocked when Warner Bros. abruptly broke off negotiations and announced The Pitt—a carbon copy of the ER reboot that was pitched to her,” a spokesperson said in a statement, via Variety. “The Crichton Estate looks forward to presenting its case to a jury and is confident it will prevail.”
The defendants, including Wells and Wyle, had attempted to get the suit thrown out under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, a tool to dismiss suits intended to hamper free speech. But Judge Wendy Chang sided with Chricton, ruling that “the evidence submitted by Plaintiffs meet[s] the minimal merit standard to demonstrate at least a prima facie case that The Pitt is derived from ER.”
Wells and Warner Bros. are naturally arguing that The Pitt is an entirely different show from ER, and any alleged similarities are just a symptom of setting any show in a hospital. “In fact, our goal at (John Wells Productions), while working on the project was to produce an entirely new medical drama—that viewers would see as different from any other medical drama that has been on television to date,” Wells said in a statement. “Our intent with The Pitt is to examine—and contribute to the public discussion on—the challenges facing emergency medical providers in the post-COVID world.”
