Noah Wyle says he’s “profoundly sad and disappointed” about a legal action alleging the Max hit “The Pitt” is an unsanctioned revival of “ER,” 16 years after the legendary NBC drama ended its run.
Wyle, a cast member of both shows and an executive producer on “The Pitt,” spoke to Variety about his reaction to the lawsuit filed by the estate of late author and executive producer Michael Crichton, who wrote the screenplay for what became the pilot episode of “ER.”
“The only thing that I can legally speak to is how I feel emotionally, which is just profoundly sad and disappointed,” Wyle said. “This taints the legacy, and it shouldn’t have. At one point, this could have been a partnership. And when it wasn’t a partnership, it didn’t need to turn acrimonious. But on the 30th anniversary of ‘ER,’ I’ve never felt less celebratory of that achievement than I do this year.”
Crichton’s estate, which includes his widow, Sherri Crichton, filed a lawsuit in August 2024 accusing the creators of “The Pitt” of breach of contract and two other counts. Wyle, former “ER” producer R. Scott Gemmill and executive producer John Wells were among the named defendants. Gemmill created “The Pitt,” and Wells is an executive producer on the show along with Wyle.
TODAY.com has reached out to Sherri Crichton’s attorney for comment and has not yet heard back.
Wyle, 53, played Dr. John Carter, a young hotshot doctor, on “ER,” and portrays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a grizzled veteran of the emergency room at a Pittsburgh hospital, in “The Pitt.”
“Noah Wyle’s character is Dr. John Carter from ‘ER’ in all but name, only 30 years later, and imbued with the experience and lessons learned during the 15-year run of the original series,” the lawsuit alleges.
The defendants started work on an “ER” reboot in 2020 with plans for it to air on HBO Max, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges the defendants did this “without any notice” to Sherri Crichton and with “brazen disregard” of contractual rights of Michael Crichton’s estate, according to the complaint.
The creators of “The Pitt” argued that making the show was a “constitutionally protected act of free speech,” according to a ruling by the Superior Court of California in February.
Wyle told Variety that he and “The Pitt” creators purposefully set out to do a different show after the negotiations with Crichton’s estate over an “ER” revival fell apart.
“We pivoted as far in the opposite direction as we could in order to tell the story we wanted to tell — and not for litigious reasons, but because we didn’t want to retread our own creative work,” Wyle said.
“We really wanted to find something new for ourselves,” he continued. “And in some ways, that’s what was so disheartening about the whole thing. We really felt like we’d done it.”
Wyle told Variety that an “ER” reboot “got pretty close to being a reality,” but Warner Bros. Television could not come to an agreement with Sherri Crichton, who oversees her late husband’s estate.
The complaint alleges that the creators of “The Pitt” shared with Sherri Crichton in 2022 that they had been developing an “ER” reboot. She refused to give consent for the planned reboot after negotiations stalled, according to the lawsuit.
Crichton’s estate alleges in the lawsuit that “The Pitt” shares striking similarities to “ER,” including the hospital setting, structure and supporting characters.
“‘The Pitt’ is ‘ER.’ It’s not like ‘ER,’ it’s not kind of ‘ER,’ it’s not sort of ‘ER.’ It is ‘ER’ complete with the same executive producer, writer, star, production companies, studio, and network as the planned ‘ER’ reboot,” the lawsuit states. “No one has been fooled.”
Warner Bros. Television called the lawsuit’s claims “baseless” in a statement issued in November 2024.
“Ms. (Sherri) Crichton’s lawsuit against WBD lacks both factual and legal foundation. Ms. Crichton’s description of the timeline and content of our negotiations about a potential ‘ER’ reboot are incorrect, and we strongly deny her allegations,” the studio said, as reported by Deadline.
“Importantly, ‘The Pitt’ does not include any ‘ER’ intellectual property and is no more similar to ‘ER’ than is ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ‘Chicago Med’, or any of the countless other hospital medical dramas that have aired since or before ‘ER’,” the statement continued.
