CBS’ drama pilot Quean has become the victim of a legal standoff between two media congloms. I have learned that Warner Bros TV, which produces the project with Joel Silver’s Silver Pictures, yesterday decided to pull the plug upon the advice of an outside legal firm.

When it was announced, Quean, written by The L Word creator Ilene Chaiken, sounded like a typical CBS procedural: It centers on an edgy and independent Millennial hacker girl who teams up with an Oakland police detective to solve crimes. The pilot secured Jaume Collet-Serra as director and was moving to the casting stage when Warner Bros. TV received a letter from Sony Pictures threatening a lawsuit over alleged similarities to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which Sony has the rights to and is adapting as a movie trilogy. (The first movie, directed by David Fincher, was released last year; the other two have been greenlighted).