‘The Pitt’ Breach Of Contract Battle Between Michael Crichton’s Widow & Warner Bros Discovery Given Official Greenlight By Judge – Update

deadline.com:

UPDATE, 8:38 AM: The Pitt is officially coming back for a second season Max declared on Valentines’ Day, and the legal fray between Michael Crichton’s widow and Warner Bros Discovery over the Noah Wylie starrer is officially going forward, an LA judge declared Monday. “Constrained by the procedural rules under the anti-SLAPP statute, the Court finds that the evidence submitted by Plaintiffs meet the minimal merit standard to demonstrate at least a prima facie case that The Pitt is derived from ER,” wrote LA Superior Court Judge Wendy Chang in a final ruling issued late on February 24 denying WBD’s anti-SLAPP motion. “Under anti-SLAPP standards, the Court cannot find Plaintiffs claims to be totally meritless.” A follow up on the “soft” tentative that Judge Chang put forth at the end of January after a downtown hearing, Monday’s ruling now sets the stage for the case to move forward, with discovery (no WBD pun intended).

No trial date has been set, and, as can always occur in such skirmishs, a settlement is never out of the question. Not putting her thumb on the overall merits of either side’s case, Judge Chang went on to note in her six-page ruling yesterday: “Plaintiffs’ evidence establish a timeline of various communications and events to show the negotiations with the Estate over an ER reboot, failure of those negotiations, and the creation of The Pitt.

Plaintiffs’ evidence challenges Defendants assertion of the applicable definition of derivative works as intended by the parties when drafting the original Agreement.” “The Court cannot determine the ultimate question of whether or not The Pitt is, in fact, derivative of ER within the meaning of the Agreement through this motion.” With their initial legal tactic