Lawyers for the HBO Max medical drama The Pitt have hit back at claims that the show is an ER rip-off. In a court submission in California on Monday (May 11) via Deadline , the defendants, which also include producer John Wells and lead actor Noah Wyle, described the proposition that The Pitt is a “derivative work of the ER as baseless.” It comes after ER creator Michael Crichton’s estate first brought the case against Warner Bros. in 2024. ER, which starred George Clooney and Wyle, ran from 1994 to 2009. “Plaintiff seeks to kill The Pitt – and claims it should never have aired – based on a plainly incorrect misreading of a single phrase in a 1994 contract that gave Crichton approval rights over ‘derivative works’ of ER ,” the submission read.…