imperialscum said:
Looking at the thing from a practical (realistic) perspective, Kurtz definitely earned his replacement. This was a self-financed film by Lucas. The shooting time and the budget doubled. This is something even a major studio would be extremely worried about. Well one could argue to Kurtz's defence that Kershner worked extremely slowly, but it is producer's job to ensure things progress as intended (either in a nice or rough manner).
The massive box office receipts, because the movie turned out to be really good, and the tons of toys sold, because the movie turned out to be really good, apparently don't mean much to George. Isn't the end result what really matters?
If Empire had tanked, there would have been no saga. Star Wars would have likely been forever written off as an unrepeatable box office fluke. We'd probably have a nicely restored Criterion Blu Ray of it now though.