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Gary Kurtz Perfection
6. Did the relative box office failure of Star Wars Empire Strikes Back ruin the movie producing career of Gary Kurtz?
Most Star Wars fans have forgotten the name of Gary Kurtz, who was the movie producer of both Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope and Star Wars Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back. Additionally, Gary Kurtz served as the co producer of George Lucas' first massive box office mega hit called American Graffiti. At the time in 1973, American Graffiti was dollar for dollar invested in film production the most profitable motion picture in the history of Hollywood.
However, nearly all the success of American Graffiti and Star Wars is attributed only and solely to the genius of George Lucas. It should be remembered by the George Lucas apologists that George Lucas' THX 1138 movie was one of the biggest box office disasters of all time. Gary Kurtz had no involvement with the THX 1138 film. It's more than just coincidence and accident that George Lucas became a mainstream commercial film maker after meeting Gary Kurtz.
Without Gary Kurtz, it's very, very extremely likely that American Graffiti would have NEVER been produced. The hugely profitable American Graffiti is what allowed George Lucas the ability to get Star Wars financed by 20th Century Fox. It must be recognized that even with the unprecedented success of American Graffiti every single movie studio in Hollywood rejected Star Wars because it was an unfathomable and seemingly silly idea for a movie.
Gary Kurtz was the key to convincing Twentieth Century Fox to take a gamble with Star Wars. Even with Gary Kurtz, 20th Century Fox would give George Lucas a mere $ 11 (eleven) million U.S. dollars to create A New Hope. The amazing production talents of Gary Kurtz is what enabled George Lucas to make the most influential and stunning motion picture ever with nearly no money.
After A New Hope, the future of Gary Kurtz appeared unlimited, but then the horrendous nightmare called Irvin Kershner (Kersh) arrived. Being a true visionary, Gary Kurtz tried to convince George Lucas to direct the sequel to A New Hope called The Empire Strikes Back. George Lucas refused to helm The Empire Strikes Back because directing A New Hope was the worst experience of George Lucas' entire life.
Instead, George Lucas made the short sighted decision to hire an unknown movie director to create the most important sequel movie imaginable. George Lucas chose to hire Kersh over the strenuous objections of Gary Kurtz. It was Gary Kurtz, who fully warned George Lucas that they needed a movie director, who understood how to create a big time Hollywood movie production. Kersh had no money making movies outside of The Empire Strikes Back. This surprises none except George Lucas.
Kersh was so incompetent as a film director that the production budget of The Empire Strikes Back spiraled out of control. Evidently, Kersh had no idea what he was doing and it nearly ruined George Lucas financially because George Lucas self financed The Empire Strikes Back from the profits George Lucas earned from A New Hope.
Unfortunately, George Lucas blamed Gary Kurtz wholly for the budget over runs. However, George Lucas also blamed Kersh, which is why Kersh wasn't hired to direct Star Wars Episode 6 Return of the Jedi. After The Empire Strikes Back grossed less than half the infinite box office revenues of A New Hope in theaters, George Lucas was extremely furious and blamed Gary Kurtz.
Thanks to Kersh, Gary Kurtz NEVER worked on subsequent Lucasfilm productions. In fact, Kersh essentially ruined the movie producing career of Gary Kurtz. In the past thirty years, Gary Kurtz has worked as a film producer on very few movies. None of them matched the success of Star Wars. Not even close at all.
In hindsight, Gary Kurtz should have not worked with George Lucas, which would have probably resulted in the failure of George Lucas' directing career instead of destroying the future of Gary Kurtz. It is doubtful American Graffiti and Star Wars would have happened without Gary Kurtz. Lucas is a vast multi multi billionaire mainly because of Gary Kurtz, but George Lucas has forgotten how important Gary Kurtz was for the success of American Graffiti and Star Wars.
Gary Kurtz Film Producer
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