Warner Bros. Tv, the studio behind hit NBC medical drama ER and the upcoming Max medical drama The Pitt, has formally responded to the breach of contract lawsuit filed in August by Sherri Crichton, the widow of ER creator Michael Crichton, on behalf of John Michael Crichton Belief’s Roadrunner JMTC.
“The Pitt is a very totally different present from ER,” the redacted submitting says. “Plaintiff can not use Mr. Crichton’s ER contract as a speech-stifling weapon to stop Defendants from ever making a present about emergency medication.”
The movement to dismiss (you may learn it right here) was filed Nov. 4 by attorneys for the TV studio in addition to the ER alums engaged on The Pitt named in Crichton’s swimsuit, exec producer John Wells, star/exec producer Noah Wyle and author/exec producer R. Scott Gemmill. It pushes again on the property’s claims that “The Pitt is ER” and that WBTV and the producers proceeded to create a model of the NBC sequence set at an city Pittsburgh hospital after negotiations between the 2 sides for an ER reboot failed, infringing on the property’s contractual proper of approval for any “by-product work.”
The studio argues that similarities between the 2 reveals are solely generic “and shared by quite a few reveals within the medical drama style—like tales about emergency medication in an city hospital or interns overwhelmed by their new jobs—and the truth that ER and The Pitt have one actor (Wyle) in widespread.” (To assist the latter declare, the submitting notes that ER star George Clooney had beforehand starred in a medical present titled E/R. Each sequence have been set at a Chicago emergency room.)
“The Pitt is just not a “by-product work” of ER,” the movement says. “And it could be absurd to interpret the ER Settlement as prohibiting WBTV from ever once more making a medical drama about emergency medication (and Wyle, who was not even a celebration to the Settlement, from ever starring in a single) with out Mr. Crichton’s consent.”
The doc, filed by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, has been redacted to hide plot and character particulars about The Pitt, which is but to be launched. The brand new sequence is believed to happen in actual time over a day within the vein of 24. The movement argues that The Pitt‘s plot, themes, dialogue, characters, temper, setting, tempo and sequence are all totally different.
The doc additionally particulars WBTV failed 2021-22 negotiations with the Crichton property for a possible ER reboot with Wells, Wyle and Gemmill, which the property had described as “fraught with bullying and veiled threats” in its swimsuit.
The studio referred to as Sherri Crichton’s calls for for “many thousands and thousands of {dollars}” “exorbitant” and “unreasonable”, “nicely above business requirements.” WBTV claims that its financial presents have been “substantial” with “beneficiant phrases.”
