Set to kick off its second season in January 2026 on HBO Max, the Gemmill-created and ER alum Wells-EP’d The Pitt was hauled into court by the widow Crichton in August 2024 in a breach of contract action. Hoping to stop The Pitt from seeing the light of day, the estate of the ER, Jurassic Park, Westworld, Twister, and The Andromeda Strain creator essentially claimed that the Pittsburgh, PA-set series came to life out of the ashes of a failed negotiation to reboot the 15-season NBC medical hit.
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“This lawsuit is an effort to prohibit lifelong artists — the writers, producers, and actor named as Defendants — from exhibiting a groundbreaking and Emmy-award-winning TV series that speaks directly about some of today’s most pressing issues,” the nearly 70-page appeal brief states.
“The lawsuit is baseless: The Pitt is no more a ‘derivative work’ of ER than is any other hospital drama,” it adds. “The Pitt involves different characters, a different plot, different themes, a different setting, and a different storytelling device (with each episode of The Pitt occurring in real time over a single hour, unlike ER, where each 45-minute episode covered, at minimum, an entire day-long shift). The shows’ only similarities are (1) they are both medical dramas set in emergency departments—like dozens of other shows—and (2) they share a single actor, Defendant Noah Wyle, playing different characters.”