Intro for November 6, 2026

Dear Gossips,

In the wake of The Pitt’s breakout success in 2025, Sherri Crichton, widow of Michael Crichton, creator of ER, filed a breach of contract suit against Warner Bros. Television, and former ER and current The Pitt creative team John Wells, R. Scott Gemmill, and Noah Wyle. The lawsuit was actually filed in late 2024, before The Pitt launched in January 2025, as Sherri Crichton believed The Pitt derives from ER. Now, two years later, a judge has ruled the case to proceed to trial, though Wells, Gemmill, and Wyle have been dropped from the suit. It’s now between WBTV and the Crichton Estate.

I’ve been watching this lawsuit for two years because there are potentially critical implications for how works are created in film and television. No one has ever disputed that following the pandemic, Noah Wyle, John Wells, and R. Scott Gemmill started talking about rebooting ER. But when talks broke down with Sherri and the Crichton Estate, the former ER buds “retooled” their idea and thus was born The Pitt. I can see Sherri Crichton’s argument that The Pitt only exists because of ER, but at the same time, The Pitt is substantially different from ER. They really only share a setting and a star in common, and no one can own the idea of “hospital setting” and “Noah Wyle plays a doctor”. At least, up till now no one can own those ideas.

This situation reminds me of a blowup in the 1990s over space shows Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5, which was created by J. Michael Straczynski. Originally, Straczynski pitched Babylon 5 to Paramount TV first, they declined, he ultimately went into production with, coincidentally, WBTV, only for Deep Space Nine to beat them to air. Though no lawsuits were ever filed, Straczynski maintains that Paramount TV plundered his story bible to create their own space show set in the Star Trek universe.

1. Correct. We pitched the show to Paramount 6-12 months before DS9 was announced, which came right on the heels of B5 being announced first. They put their show into high gear, spending 4 times what we did so they'd make it to air first. https://t.co/K7ckLEtri5

— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) May 26, 2018

The thing is, THAT HAPPENS. It absolutely happens! It’s one of the main reasons to file your script with the Writers’ Guild as soon as possible, so you have something stamped and dated showing the IP is yours. But the other side of the coin is that if the material is “substantially” changed, copyright lawsuits don’t hold up. For instance, a copyright suit against The Pitt would probably fail simply on the grounds that it’s a new hospital, new characters, and new storylines. There is no “ER branding” on The Pitt, so however similar they may seem on the surface, two shows set in a hospital ER are not inherently infringing on one another.

But the Crichton Estate isn’t technically suing on copyright grounds but rather breach of contract because Michael Crichton had a “frozen rights” clause in his ER contract back in the day, which means no derivative works can be made without the express approval of Crichton (now deceased) or his estate. Sherri Crichton’s case is that since she declined to allow the ER reboot, The Pitt shouldn’t exist, period.

It comes down to this being a breach of contract vs. a copyright suit. The reason Wyle et al got dismissed from the suit is because this ISN’T about copyright and plagiarism. It’s about WBTV going ahead to produce a medical drama that Sherri Crichton and the Crichton Estate feel is derivative of ER. The good news for them is that they don’t have to prove copyright infringement, they only have to prove that The Pitt wouldn’t exist without ER, which feels like a very low bar to clear in a jury trial. (I am VERY curious to see that ER reboot pitch, and I wonder if those materials will come out in discovery. If that proposed ER reboot, for instance, had a “real time” concept, WBTV is sunk.)

The consequences of a ruling, though, could be devastating. I don’t believe it’s Sherri Crichton’s intention, but depending on how this case unfolds, it could set a precedent that ends up stifling development possibilities because it broadens the definition of “derivative”. Think of all the movies and TV shows, including Heated Rivalry, that exist because of fanfic. If the definition of “derivative” expands beyond immediate similarity, where does that leave those adaptations? They wouldn’t exist except for a source text, if the precedent is set that you can define “derivative” as “inspired by” or “shares DNA with”, where does that leave us?

It’s a big question, and I don’t think anyone actually wants to answer it. Sherri Crichton is positioning herself as the defender of creator rights, but one ruling that defines “derivative” in a broader sense than currently exists could be a death knell to creative industry. This is a case that would be best settled out of court, but from the beginning the WBTV position has been that Sherri Crichton is asking for too much money, and Crichton’s position is that all these Hollywood men are treating her like a bothersome idiot, so I get the feeling this might actually go to trial because of the sheer acrimony involved. And then we’ll just have to watch the rulings and see if a judge puts pen to paper in re/defining “derivative”.

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Live long and gossip,

Sarah