Noah Wyle Says The Pitt Lawsuit ‘Taints the Legacy’ of ER
Errr … lawsuits are the pits! Noah Wyle addressed Sherri Crichton’s lawsuit against his new show The Pitt for the first time in a Variety interview. “The only thing that I can legally speak to is how I feel emotionally, which is just profoundly sad and disappointed,” he said. “This taints the legacy, and it shouldn’t have.” Crichton, the widow of ER creator Michael Crichton, was previously working with Wyle and the creators of The Pitt on a reboot of ER that eventually fell apart. That led Wyle, with R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells, both ER producers who were also working on the reboot, to The Pitt, Max’s new medical-drama hit. “At one point, this could have been a partnership,” Wyle said. “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.”
Sherri Crichton’s lawsuit, which was filed in August 2024, calls The Pitt an unauthorized reboot of ER that doesn’t properly credit Michael Crichton or compensate his heirs, per the New York Times. Warner Bros., named in the suit alongside Wyle, Gemmill, and Wells, responded by saying that “the lawsuit filed by the Crichton Estate is baseless” and called The Pitt a “new and original show.” Notably, The Pitt operates with a conceit that ER does not: The entire season takes place in one daylong period. Maybe the guys who made 24 should sue too?
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