Peter Guber was recruited directly from college by Columbia Pictures in 1968 and began a successful career as an independent producer in 1976. His first feature was the waterlogged adventure "The Deep" (1977), but he soon had greater critical success with "Midnight Express" (1978). In 1982 he joined with Jon Peters to form the Guber-Peters Company, one of Hollywood's most effective producing teams of the 1980s with blockbusters such as "Flashdance" (1983) and "Batman" (1989). Guber and Peters were appointed joint heads of Columbia after the Sony corporation's costly purchase of the studio in 1989.

Signing Guber and Peters meant not only that Sony acquired their production company for about $200 million but also that Sony gave half of its CBS Record Club to Warner Bros. and its interest in Warners as well in order to get the duo released from their contract there. Guber remained sole chairman after Peters' resignation in May, 1991 and his most important contributions to Sony Pictures Entertainment were a company restructuring and, perhaps more importantly, rebuilding the lot located at Culver City for over $103 million, making it a state of the art film and TV production facility.

Within Sony's empire, Guber played a substantial role in the creation of such Columbia Pictures' hits as "The Prince of Tides", "City Slickers" (both 1991), "A Few Good Men", Bram Stoker's Dracula" (both 1992), "Groundhog Day" and "In the Line of Fire" (both 1993). His major financial successes released through Sony's TriStar Pictures banner, meanwhile, included "Terminator 2" (1991), "Basic Instinct" (1992), "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Philadelphia" (both 1993). The company, though, did have its boxoffice failures during this time as well, perhaps most notably the vastly overbudgeted "The Last Action Hero" (1993).

Production did slow down at Sony through late 1993 and 1994 and Guber began to set his sights elsewhere. Although he had signed a new five-year contract in the early 1993, he obtained a release from Sony in the fall of the following year, and stated his plans to form an independent production company which would receive financing from Sony.