Lawsuit Over "The Pitt" Reveals Stunning Royalties Michael Crichton's Estate Has Earned Off "ER" Reruns

I'm writing this article on Sunday afternoon and scheduling it to be published on Monday at 2 am PST. The Emmys air on Sunday night, just a few hours from now as I type this.

By the time you read this, you will know whether or not Noah Wyle went home with an Emmy for his work on the hit HBO Max series "The Pitt." Noah has two chances to bring home an Emmy. As an actor, he's nominated in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series category. As an executive producer, he's nominated for Outstanding Drama Series.

If he does win, the victory will be somewhat bittersweet. Even though "The Pitt" is a huge success and generating a somewhat unexpected later-career resurgence, Noah and the creators/studio behind the show are currently embroiled in an awkward and potentially very costly lawsuit. At the heart of the dispute is Michael Crichton, one of the most successful television, book, and film creators of all time.

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The Lawsuit

As you probably know, Noah Wyle became a household name in the 1990s thanks to his role as Dr. John Carter on Michael Crichton's NBC hospital drama "ER." What you may not know is that "ER" itself was the brainchild of Crichton — one of the rare creators whose influence spanned literature, film, and television.

Actually, let's step back a moment.

From Medical Student to Jurassic Park

Michael Crichton began his career not in Hollywood, but in medicine. A Harvard Medical School graduate, he started writing novels as a side hustle while still in training. His early works, often published under pseudonyms, paid his bills but also revealed his fascination with the intersection of science, technology, and human vulnerability. That theme became his hallmark.

In 1969, Crichton published "The Andromeda Strain," a novel about a deadly extraterrestrial virus. It was a runaway bestseller, adapted into a hit film two years later. Suddenly, Crichton was not just a doctor dabbling in fiction — he was a new force in American pop culture.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he became one of the world's best-selling authors, turning out books like "Congo," "Sphere," and "Rising Sun." He also stepped behind the camera, writing and directing the 1973 sci-fi thriller "Westworld." The film's premise — a theme park populated by malfunctioning androids — would echo through pop culture for decades, eventually inspiring HBO's big-budget series of the same name.

Then came the breakthrough that defined his legacy: "Jurassic Park." First a 1990 novel, then a 1993 Steven Spielberg film, the story became a global phenomenon, grossing more than $1 billion and turning Crichton into a household name. By the early 1990s, he was a novelist whose books sold hundreds of millions of copies, a filmmaker with cult classics on his résumé, and a Hollywood insider working alongside the industry's most powerful names.

From "Emergency Ward" to "ER"

As it turned out, back in 1974, Crichton had drawn on his own experiences as a medical student to write a screenplay called "EW," short for "Emergency Ward." The script was a real-time story about a single day inside a chaotic hospital emergency room. With encouragement from his powerful agent, Michael Ovitz, Crichton began shopping the project to networks.

For years, it went nowhere. But in the early 1990s, as Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment was riding high from the success of "Jurassic Park," the idea resurfaced. Amblin and Warner Bros. backed a two-hour pilot, retitled "ER." To guide the project on the television side, Warner brought in John Wells, a rising writer-producer who had just finished a celebrated run on the Vietnam hospital drama "China Beach." Wells became ER's executive producer and eventual showrunner, shaping the tone, pacing, and longevity of the series.

The "ER" Juggernaut

When "ER" debuted on NBC in September 1994, it exploded into a phenomenon. Slotted into the network's coveted Thursday night "Must See TV" lineup alongside "Friends" and "Seinfeld," the show captivated audiences with its breathless pace, unflinching realism, and complex ensemble cast. Viewers tuned in not just for the medical emergencies, but for the intertwining personal dramas of doctors and nurses working at the fictional County General Hospital in Chicago.

The cast became household names almost overnight. George Clooney broke out as pediatrician Doug Ross. Julianna Margulies won acclaim as nurse Carol Hathaway. And Noah Wyle, as fresh-faced med student John Carter, provided the audience's entry point into the chaos. Crichton's vision — that medicine should be portrayed without sugarcoating, in all its intensity and moral ambiguity — was realized on screen.

Critics and audiences responded. "ER" ran for an astonishing 15 seasons and 331 episodes, making it the longest-running primetime medical drama until it was eventually surpassed by "Grey's Anatomy." The show won 23 Primetime Emmy Awards and was nominated for more than 120. At its peak, it drew over 30 million viewers per week.

It was also a financial juggernaut. Syndication deals, DVD sales, and later streaming rights generated more than $3.5 billion for Warner Bros. Television.

OK, Back to the Lawsuit

Three decades after "ER" first aired, Noah Wyle found himself circling back to the role that made his career. In early 2020, he emailed John Wells — his old "ER" showrunner — with an idea: a darker, more intimate limited series that revisited Dr. John Carter years later, scarred and aged, but still in the trenches of emergency medicine.

Warner Bros. Television loved the idea, and negotiations began with Sherri Crichton, Michael's widow and the executor of his estate. Draft press releases were even written announcing an "ER" sequel. But then things fell apart. Sherri discovered a key clause in Michael's original contracts: a "frozen rights" provision requiring her approval for any "ER" sequel, spinoff, or reboot. Without her sign-off, the deal couldn't go forward.

The standoff was especially fraught because the Crichton estate already felt burned by Warner and its sister company HBO. When HBO revived Michael's 1973 film "Westworld" as a prestige series in 2016, the studio declined to give Crichton a coveted "Created By" credit, instead listing him only as "Based on characters created by." For Sherri and the estate, that was more than a matter of ego — creator credits carry significant financial weight. It left them wary that Warner might once again profit off Crichton's ideas without properly honoring his role.

Rather than scrap the project entirely, Warner Bros. retooled it. Wyle would still star, Wells would still produce, and the format would still echo Crichton's original "one shift" vision. But the new series would be set in Pittsburgh instead of Chicago, with Wyle playing Dr. Michael Robinavitch instead of Dr. John Carter. The project was renamed "The Pitt."

From Warner's perspective, this was a brand-new show. From the Crichton estate's perspective, it was "ER" in disguise. In August 2024, the estate filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, accusing Warner Bros., Wyle, Wells, and showrunner R. Scott Gemmill of breaching Crichton's contracts and violating his intellectual property.

What might have remained a behind-the-scenes negotiation instead erupted into a very public clash, just as "The Pitt" was earning rave reviews — and Emmy nominations. And in the process, the lawsuit pulled back the curtain on financial details about "ER" that had never been public before.

The Financial Bombshell

If not for this lawsuit, the public might never have known just how valuable "ER" was for Michael Crichton's estate. As we mentioned earlier, Warner Bros. has made at least $3.5 billion from the series through its 15-season run and long after, thanks to syndication, DVD sales, and streaming rights. Court filings just revealed another stunning number.

According to the lawsuit, as the show's creator, Michael Crichton's estate has been paid $800,000 in backend royalties for every episode of "ER" that was produced. ER produced 331 episodes. When you put those numbers together, you get…

$264,800,000

As eye-popping as that $264.8 million ER windfall is, remember – it was just one pillar of Michael Crichton's remarkable career. Over the course of four decades, his 29 novels sold more than 250 million copies worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in history. On the big screen, adaptations of his work — from "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World" to "Congo," "Sphere," and "Disclosure" — have generated tens of billions in box office, DVD, and streaming revenue, with "Jurassic Park" alone spawning one of the highest-grossing film franchises of all time. As a director, he left his mark with "Westworld," a cult classic that decades later became a prestige HBO series.

Taken together, books, films, television, and even his celebrated art collection built an estate worth hundreds of millions. The lawsuit over 'The Pitt' may have revealed the true scale of Crichton's 'ER' royalties, but in the bigger picture, it's a reminder: Michael Crichton was never just a novelist, or just a filmmaker, or just the creator of a hit TV show. He was all of them — and his legacy continues to shape pop culture and Hollywood balance sheets, long after his death. And now, that legacy is being tested in court.

If Noah did win last night, it may be a truly bittersweet moment. If he lost, it's double bitter.