EXCLUSIVE: The widow of Michael Crichton – creator of Emergency Room (First Aid), Jurassic Park, Westworld, Twister, Andromeda – Deadly Dust from Space and many other hits that mix sound science with driving pop culture narratives – filed a potentially explosive lawsuit in the California Supreme Court this morning.
The suit is being brought by Crichton’s widow, Sherri Crichton, on behalf of Roadrunner JMTC of the John Michael Crichton Trust. The suit accuses Warner Bros Television, John Wells, Noah Wyle, R. Scott Gemmill and others of breach of contract, breach of implied covenants of good faith and intentional disruption of contractual relationships. Crichton is represented by Heston Hennigan LLP, which has demanded a jury trial. That firm represented Peter Jackson in the filmmaker’s profit-sharing lawsuit against Warner Bros, which was settled.
The lawsuit alleges that after years of negotiations over a remake of the billion-dollar hit series were broken off, HEWBTV, Wells, Wyle and Gemmill applied the concept to a hospital in the Pittsburgh area and called it The PittThe show has received a straight-to-series order for 15 episodes and will air on Warner Bros Discovery streamer Max.
The lawsuit accuses WBTV, Wells, Wyle and Gemmill of engaging in lengthy negotiations with the estate over a HE sequel, only to set up a show with a similar concept and the same creative participants shortly after talks fell through. There were three main differences: the medical drama’s setting was moved to Pittsburgh, Wyle’s character was no longer Dr. Carter, and the Crichton estate was removed from the mix.
Deadline received a pilot from The Pitt Pilot script and the similarities to HE are remarkable. The shows have in common the chaotic pattern of overworked doctors in an underfunded city hospital, whose private lives are explored between patient crises. The original HE was based on Crichton’s experiences as a medical intern in the emergency room of a city hospital while studying at Harvard Medical School.
Wyle, whose big eyes HE Doctor Carter character was the avatar for Crichton as he stepped into the chaos of the emergency room, stars in The Pitt like Dr. Michael Robinavich. He is an experienced HE Doctor who has seen everything.
The lawsuit expresses bad feelings toward Wells, describing his actions as a “personal betrayal of a 30-year friendship” with the late ER creator and Warner Bros. Television, which largely eliminated Crichton’s name from the HBO series. Westworld. That series credited showrunners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan as creators, although the title and basic concept came from the 1973 film of the same name, written and directed by Crichton, about an adult fantasy camp set in the Wild West where a malfunctioning robot (Yul Brynner) starts gunning down guests. Crichton was posthumously denied the creator credit, and his name appeared in a “based on” credit that appeared at the end of the credits at the end of episodes. The series, which ran on HBO from 2016 to 2022, expanded Crichton’s concept into a widespread robot revolt, but its basis was clear.
When it was founded in 1994 together with Friends, HE became a huge hit for NBC, running for 15 years on Thursdays at 10 p.m. and making the series a fortune in syndication, with total gross revenues of $3.2 billion, the lawsuit says. HEThe conceptual mix of medical chaos and the difficult private lives of overworked doctors was adopted by other series, such as Grey’s Anatomy. Plaintiffs argue that there is a big difference here because Crichton took steps during his lifetime to protect his interests.
Before he gave in, HE – he originally wrote it as a screenplay for a 1974 film called Emergency room and revived it at the request of Steven Spielberg after Jurassic Park – Crichton insisted on and got a “frozen rights” clause from the studio. According to the lawsuit, Crichton did this to ensure that future productions would meet his meticulous standards and that Crichton and his heirs would be fairly compensated. He and Spielberg share these frozen rights, and Crichton’s rights passed to his heirs upon his death.
According to the lawsuit, the frozen rights clause prohibits WBTV from making sequels, remakes, spinoffs or other derivative productions based on HE without Crichton’s express consent. This provision ensured that Crichton received appropriate recognition and that he and his heirs received compensation commensurate with the ultimate success of the HEin connection with future productions. Or more precisely, it would have ensured this if WBTV had kept its promises to Crichton.
“After Crichton’s death in 2008, WBTV engaged in a disturbing pattern of behavior aimed at neither acknowledging (or even honoring) Crichton and the wealth he bestowed on WBTV, nor continuing to profit from Crichton’s creation without paying a single penny to his heirs.
“The Pitt Is HEIt is not like HEit is not somehow HEit is not somehow HE. It is HE complete with the same executive producer, writer, star, production companies, studio and network as planned HE Restart,” the lawsuit states.
That WBTV, Wells & Wyle tried to HE Sequel series is not controversial. Wyle said this in a podcast and added that they could not reach an agreement with the Crichton estate, which led them to The Pitt. Together with Wells and Gemmill, Wyle was a HE An integral part of the original cast along with Anthony Edwards, George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Eriq La Salle and Sherry Stringfield.
The HE Talks about a sequel series began in November 2022, when his widow, Sherri Crichton, received a “courtesy call” from Wells, telling her that a press release about the sequel series would be issued shortly. Subsequent talks with WBTV quickly stalled. The estate was told that a request to credit the late Crichton as “creator” – he died in 2008, before the original ER series ended – was not possible. The studio then toughened its stance, according to the lawsuit.
“When Plaintiff’s representatives hesitated, WBTV attempted to backtrack on its earlier and unambiguous acknowledgment of Plaintiff’s frozen rights by stating that “notwithstanding any casual indications to the contrary by the studio or prior courtesies,” WBTV did not “reaffirm” those frozen rights. WBTV even went so far as to claim that HE owed its success to “the personal efforts of Mr. Wells,” glossing over not only Crichton’s creative vision but also the fact that it was Crichton who saved Wells’ career after his plagiarism scandal (elsewhere in the suit, it is alleged that Wells was sued and Murder: A year on the streets of death David Simon and Barry Levinson on passages in his short-lived CBS series Engelstrasse). This,” the lawsuit says, “was a dramatic escalation of the humiliations against Crichton and his legacy that WBTV had previously committed in connection with Westworld…”
According to the lawsuit, both Wyle and Wells emailed Sherri Crichton to harshly criticize WBTV. Wells wrote in an email dated February 11, 2023: “I was not aware that Michael’s name had been virtually removed from the Westworld. And I think it was despicable. Not only would I never have done that to another author, it would never have occurred to me to do that to another author – let alone one of Michael’s caliber. It’s stupid, reckless and counterproductive – Michael’s name on any show is a plus. He has millions of fans who would have watched a television adaptation of Michael Crichton’s work. Stupid, disrespectful and embarrassing.” According to the lawsuit, Wells then boasted that “I frankly made the money for (Crichton),” and “Wells falsely assured Sherri that at the beginning of the discussions about a possible HE Restart and begged her to accept the deal with WBTV. “We would put Michael’s director’s chair back by the monitors… and (his son) could sit in it and watch us shoot… Show him what his father created. How he impacted so many lives. I loved Michael, Sherri, he was my friend. We shared many, many wonderful times together. I miss him. The way this all turned out has saddened me deeply.”
Sherri Crichton’s response: “As you have rightly admitted, the Crichton family’s relationship with Warner Brothers has been awful since Michael’s death and it is unfortunate that this treatment has continued throughout the ER negotiations. I have read all of the correspondence from Brett Paul (Warner Brothers Discovery executive) and I must say that I was shocked at the way they treated Michael’s estate, me and our son. Am I right in assuming that neither you nor anyone from your company knew of this treatment? Surely you would have stood up and denounced this behavior.
“The negotiations were full of bullying and veiled threats. This is the same kind of behavior that allowed Warner Brothers to strip Michael’s ‘Created By’ credit on Westworld (a film he created, wrote and directed) and minimize and eliminate his contributions to a number of other successful projects. This is wrong. Michael would be appalled. And if the tables were turned, John, I’m sure you would be too.
“I want to make it clear that I was excited by your vision for the new ER, and I also want you to know that we worked very hard to get a deal with WB. You hold an extraordinarily powerful position at Warner Brothers, and I would ask you to consider how Brett Paul spoke about me to my representatives and ask yourself if you are comfortable with this treatment. From a practical business perspective, Warner Brothers’ offer was below market price and therefore unacceptable. It also involved troubling self-dealing. If Warner Brothers were to try to reopen negotiations, they would have to be fair, and I would also like to see you directly involved.”
The exciting talks continued, some of them in backchannel capacities, according to the lawsuit. They failed when WBTV refused to guarantee authorship. Shortly thereafter, the press release about The Pitt.
