‘The Pitt’ Wants “Patently Absurd” Claims By Crichton Estate That HBO Max Hit Is ‘ER’ Rip-Off Squelched Once & For All

No date for arguments has been set yet at the California court of appeals for the prolonged and manifold clash between the estate of ER creator Michael Crichton and HBO Max’s Noah Wylie-led The Pitt over if the latter is a rip-off of the former, but the stage is now certainly set.

To that, in a final submission late last night to the Golden State’s Second Appellate District, Division 3 that completes briefing, Gibson Dunn lawyers for Team Pitt want a 2025 lower court ruling in widow Sherri Crichton’s favor overturned, and the whole matter sent to the litigation morgue. “Plaintiff’s expansive interpretation of the term ‘derivative works’ …so broadly as to impede Defendants’ ability to develop their own original ideas that have nothing to do with ER, simply because those ideas happened to be connected at one point in time with an abandoned ER reboot,” declares the appellants’ rely brief submitted late Monday.

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