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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
“We find the details here suffice for a prima facie case,” the judges said.
Pretty early there to say it will get “easily” defeated, when the judges have found that there is a credible claim
That’s not what that says. That’s basically saying it’s not frivolous. The actual arguments will happen in the trial this ruling is allowing.
Those are the same thing at this stage
Nothing of the sort was ruled. There hasn’t been any substantial proceedings at all. The only thing that has been decided is that there is enough of a plausible claim to proceed with a case.
Perhaps there is nothing there but an ER-based medical drama featuring a common actor and some common show runners and staff. Perhaps discovery will uncover some damning evidence of (surprise) TV evecs being shitty people and trying to screw over creators of an IP.
Time will tell
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.
Or Lorne Michaels suing every show Pete Davidson is in for being Pete Davidson in the show.
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.
I hope she isn’t going after Scrubs next they also meet all these standards too!
Every medical drama does these days. It’s wild that this is even being considered. Next The Office will go after every TV show that takes place in an office.
Next up Crichton’s widow will be sued by the creators of E/R
Even had Clooney (and Mary McDonnell who played Carter’s mom in ER)
You ever been so out of the loop that this article is where you found out that Michael Crichton died?
I’ll see your ‘found out via article’ and raise you a ‘found out in a comment on said article’
That’s meta as fuck
Not as meta as: I just found out from this comment chain
lmao, I literally just said “Michael Crichton died??” to my husband when I read the bit about his widow. Apparently in 2008.
Holy shit, man. It was in 2009…
grays anatomy:
Gray’s wasn’t/isn’t solely based in the ER, a lot in the OR and patient rooms. There are also numerous other medical dramas before and since that haven’t been sued.
As someone who never saw ER i wonder if these broad descriptions are enough for the claim to succeed with a jury. A key point is probably going to be that Noah Wyle was in ER and in talks for a sequel that the estate shutdown before The Pitt.
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.
He’s a real surgeon with his chef’s knife
I’ve worked in kitchens before, but I don’t think I’d compare it to the chaos of an ER.
Sorry, lawsuit approved
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.
So does that mean ER could be found too similar to Scrubs or Gray’s Anatomy? 🤔
Dr. Kildare & St.Elsewhere have joined the chat
House has joined and thinks these people are all idiots.
The Good Doctor has joined but quickly left because there were an odd number of votes on this post.
Having not watched ER, is there anything that makes it unique? As far as I can tell, it’s a show about an ER.
It had substantially more melodrama than the Pitt. The Pitt is too real sometimes. ER was…a different time.
I always forget that Crichton created ER. He was so prolific.
He also racist asshole.
Well Noah Whily or whatever his name is is a huge Zionist. So them losing is a win for me.
And a climate change denier
A dead racist asshole and climate change denier. Which is the best kind.
The best are in prison, dead ones don’t get to suffer and feel like they actually did anything wrong.
All I’m hearing is “They used the same actor! And it’s more medically accurate!” which is about where the similarities end.
