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.
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?
I would argue that just because you wanted to do a reboot and then couldn’t do reboot and did something else instead isn’t really evidence in and of itself.
Star Wars was of course supposed to be a flash Gordon reboot but no one seems to care about that.
If I pitch a cop drama that doesn’t get made does that prohibit me as a producer from ever having anything to do with cop dramas ever again? I have to stick to musicals for the rest of my life and hope that one of those never gets denied.
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?
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