[3] Originally a joint venture between Columbia Pictures, CBS, and HBO, whose individual video units handled video, broadcast, and pay cable rights to its products,[4] the company scored a number of box office hits with modestly-budgeted fare in the 1980s, as well as fortuitous distribution deals with the Producers Sales Organization,[5] Carolco Pictures[6] and the Taft Entertainment Group.

[7] It also expanded ambitiously throughout the decade with the acquisition of Loews Theatres and the formation of its own television arm.

Among the various hits TriStar scored on its own during the decade were About Last Night, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Real Genius, Nothing in Common, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Principal, Look Who's Talking and Steel Magnolias.

Although its products were mostly indistinguishable from that of its sister studio, it soon scored a string of hits at the box office with such films as Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Jerry Maguire, As Good as It Gets, Bugsy and Jumanji, and it also scored a major video hit with Danny DeVito's Matilda.

[12] However, in 1998, the company fell on hard times following the box office disappointment of an ambitious remake of the Japanese monster film Godzilla, and Sony quickly responded by merging the studio with Columbia to form the Columbia TriStar Motion Pictures Group.

[13] The TriStar name was subsequently used by Sony on a very limited basis until 2004, when the company decided to turn the studio into a genre label that specialized in acquisitions.

[17] The concept for Tri-Star Pictures can be traced to Victor Kaufman, a senior executive of Columbia Pictures (then a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company),[18] who convinced Columbia, HBO, and CBS to share resources and split the ever-growing costs of making movies, leading to the creation of a new joint venture on March 2, 1982.

[3][19] Tri-Star embarked on a 12 to 18 feature film slate per year, with a combined budget of $70 to $80 million and signed producer Walter Colbenz as vice president of the Tri-Star feature film studio, and signed initial development deals with director John Schlesinger and producers Jeffrey Walker and Michael Walker.

In addition, HBO owned exclusive cable distribution rights to the films, with broadcast television licenses going to CBS.

Components of these plans included the formation of TriStar Television, and joining forces with Stephen J. Cannell Productions and Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions to create a television distribution company known as TeleVentures; they also proposed forming their own home video label, Tri-Star Video, taking over from the trio of distributors (RCA/Columbia, CBS/Fox and HBO/Cannon).

Both studios continued to produce and distribute films under their separate names; a new Tri-Star Pictures, Inc. entity was created in April 1988.

In 1992, TriStar Pictures, along with Japan Satellite Broadcasting signed an agreement with The IndieProd Company to distribute movies produced by IndieProd in order to fill the void left by Carolco, whose deal with TriStar Pictures was on the verge of expiring amid financial troubles.

[14] Screen Gems' executive vice president Valerie Van Galder was tapped to run the revived studio after being dormant.

The new TriStar would develop, finance and produce up to four films per year, as well as television programming and acquisitions, starting on September 1.