US drama The Pitt is similar enough to medical series ER for a lawsuit against its producers to progress, a court in the US has ruled.
The widow of Michael Crichton, who created ER, argues The Pitt is effectively a reboot of the series, which has been made without proper permission or credit.
Sherri Crichton says her husband’s contract included a “frozen rights” provision that prohibited any spin-offs, sequels or reboots of ER being made without his express consent.
A three-judge panel said there are “clear and numerous similarities between The Pitt and ER,” which means the case can go ahead. Warner Bros previously described the lawsuit as “baseless” and sought to have it dismissed.
Listing the similarities between the two shows, the court cited the emergency room setting, the fast pace, use of medical jargon, graphic depictions of injuries, and younger doctors fresh from medical school being trained.
“We find the details here suffice for a prima facie case,” the judges said.
It means the case will now go to a jury trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Good to know we’ll never have any new TV shows based in an emergency room ever again
This bullshit! How judges going rule this is a reboot. Fuck the judge with cactus. Now this great show will get canceled. But come on better cancel or pay out for every single hospital show. Fucking cunt just like her asshole husband. Hope they fight this and bury her in court fees.
Edit: wife called it exact comparison Grey’s Anatomy would fit all the same criteria. Why didn’t the bitch sue creator of that show?
It’s because the showrunners of The Pitt worked on E.R and were in talks with Crichton’s widow to make a sequel, but the network didn’t want to pay the royalties she was asking for. So they pivoted to making an original medical drama that was very similar to E.R, hence her suing them.
Which will easily get defeated when they can point to something like Grey’s and the lack of legal action.
Is Grey’s based in an emergency room setting? Does it share key actors and staff? What about Scrubs? House?
Is it pure coincidence that a bunch of ER alumni happen to create a completely unrelated show that happens to feature the comings and goinga of doctors in an emergency room?
Valid points that the Pitt should just lean into. “We wanted to do a sequel. We couldn’t come to terms. We dropped any ER (the show) based stuff and kept all the ER medical stuff.”
Does 24 have standing to sue because they did the 1 hour per show format?
No the judge is being reasonable while you are being OTT. As others have said, there were talks to make a reboot/sequel to ER which fell through and ER was directly adapted from a Michael Crichton script. The key is the same producers went on anyway to make a show that even used a same principle actor because they allegedly didn’t want to pay for the rights.
The judge has only ruled that there is a case to hear on face value. It may well be that once the facts are heard, the producers and Warner Brothers win. It may well be that the producers lose and are felt to have effectively made the same show anyway, and owe the estate money.
It’s important to remember that ER is directly based on a script written by Michael Crichton who was a medical student in an emergency room prior to being a writer. Steven Spielberg took the script and developed it with John Wells and the pilot for ER is pretty much that script, barely changed. It’s not some tenuous connection - it is effectively Michael Crichton’s show as much as the other original producers, no matter how much it changed over 15 seasons.
This is not about making shows based in Emergency Rooms. This purely about whether this show is actually a sequel to ER that has been changed a little to get away from paying one of the original producers estates. If it had not been the exact same producers who were discussing making a sequel to ER, then there likely wouldn’t have been a case.
The Pitt’s executive producers include: John Wells, an executive producer on ER, R Scott Gemmil a writer & producer on ER and Noah Wyle an actor on ER. At face value that is quite the coincidence, especially when they also pitched a reboot of ER.
They could have chosen not to cast Noah Wyle. I legit thought it was a sequel to ER.
That’s kinda like saying Michael Imperioli couldn’t take a role as a mob boss because he played Christopher Moltisanti and that would make it a Sopranos spin-off.
Sure. Just providing an outside perspective. I haven’t watched either show, and that’s the connection I made.
Right, but Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford were both in The West Wing. Now they’re both in The Diplomat playing characters in the White House. But that doesn’t make the Diplomat a sequel to the West Wing.
No they aren’t. These two shows are about as close as Gilligan’s Island and Lost. Both shows are about a group of people lost an island but that’s about it. Same here.
Crichton’s widow is just pissy that Noah Wyle is starring in another successful medical drama. I guarantee if Noah wasn’t involved, she wouldn’t have even noticed this show existed.
Oh no, not medical jargon and depictions of injuries in a medical show. It must be copyright infringement there’s no other explanation for it.
They should probably sue Scrubs next.
Doesn’t sound like it’s about copyright infringement, just contract law.
The studio negotiated at first but then just went ahead without receiving authorization for a reboot from the estate holding that veto right.
It hasn’t got any of the same characters as ER, it shot in the completely different manner, it’s not even setting the same country as ER.
Listing the similarities between the two shows, the court cited the emergency room setting, the fast pace, the use of medical jargon, graphic depictions of injuries and younger doctors fresh from medical school being trained.
With the exception (maybe) of the younger training doctors, though I imagine doctors gotta learn, everything described there is a definitional part of a medical drama set in an emergency room. I understand the court letting this move forward because there may be good reason to explore the more detailed similarities. But the ones they listed there… that is baseless.
You cannot copyright a real world setting or genre. The subject matter of emergency room medicine is not owned by Michael Crichton, Warner Brothers, or anyone. Would be like saying the creator of Honeymooners owns the rights to domestic abuse. ER’s copyright encompasses its characters, and specific stories. Not the entire concept of an ER or triage medicine. It did not create any of those concepts. It also doesn’t own the style of narrative, pacing, editing, cinematography, etc. used, either.
It’s also shot in a totally different way that is obvious, even to people who don’t understand tv production. If there had been no mention of ER, NOBODY would make the connection.
It sounds like they had this medical show with Noah Wylie, and someone had the bright idea of shortcutting the promotion by tying to a beloved old show he’d been in. There was really no connection, but if it could make the show get accepted faster, it would be worth it. So they float the idea, but move forward anyway, because the project doesn’t rely on the ER connection.
Later, the Estate claims the ER connection was everything because of course they do.
With the exception (maybe) of the younger training doctors, though I imagine doctors gotta learn, everything described there is a definitional part of a medical drama set in an emergency room.
And the training doctors are an audience insert, so that characters can explain shit that would be obvious for anyone who is actually at home in the setting.
Somehow I got The Pitt mixed up with The Bear and did grueling mental gymnastics for too long trying to figure out how any of this is possible.
grays anatomy:
This doesn’t surprise me. We watched The Pitt and loved it. We’d heard the about the lawsuit and thought how empty it must be to just be a similar show about doctors in the Emergency Room.
Wanting more we went back and started rewatching ER (which holds up surprisingly well!). Episode after episode of ER we’re recognizing nearly exact patient plot points in Season 1 in ER that were depicted in The Pitt. Each time we see one in ER, we’re understanding the lawsuit more. It almost feels like the writers of The Pitt watched ER season 1 for its plot points.
How many of those plots have been done in other medical shows?
I don’t know. Here’s a couple of the very clear examples if you want to search for yourself:
ER:
Season 1 Episode 15 (“Feb. 5, '95”): Dr. Mark Greene treats a terminally ill cancer patient named Grace (or a breast cancer/lymph node cancer patient) who asks him to help her die. Mark increases her morphine dose to relieve her severe pain, which results in her death, sparking an ethical debate among viewers and staff about end-of-life care and palliative dosing.The Pitt:
Episode 11 (“5:00 P.M.”) of The Pitt, (dying terminal cancer patient, Roxie) Dr. Cassie McKay and Dr. Robby increase her morphine dose (invoking the doctrine of double effect, where the primary goal is pain relief even if it risks suppressing respiration) and Roxie passes away while the team deals with other emergency room crises.
ER:
The storyline occurs in Season 1, Episode 20, titled “Full Moon, Saturday Night” (originally aired in April 1995). In this episode, the ER is chaotic due to a full moon. The nurse Haleh Adams informs Dr. Susan Lewis that a newborn baby was found abandoned inside a trash bag.The Pitt:
The Pitt spans Season 2, starting with Season 2, Episode 5 (titled “BABY JANE DOE!”) Baby Jane Doe is an infant found abandoned in the hospital’s waiting room bathroom at 7:30 a.m…I’m just restarting scrubs with the wife who hadn’t seen it and, already in Season 1 I’ve seen bowel disimpacting and needle draining a stomach with the same comedic spurt effect. I did not jump to the conclusion Pitt copied Scrubs, I assumed this was a universal type experience for med interns akin to other newbie tropes in other profession shows.
I always forget that Crichton created ER. He was so prolific.
He also racist asshole.
And a climate change denier
A dead racist asshole and climate change denier. Which is the best kind.
