 Following the acrimonious split with Lucas, Kurtz produced the hit fantasy film "The Dark Crystal" in 1982.Afterwards, he acted as executive producer on the fantasy film "Return to Oz" in 1985, which was not a commercial success.He evidently hoped that he could recapture his earlier success in science fiction with "Slipstream", which co-starred popular actors from two of the major sci-fi franchises of the period - Hamill from "Star Wars", and Paxton from "Aliens".