In the years that followed, under the management of the founder–owners, Dub Taylor and Chris Kuchler, the label expanded its catalogue to include jazz, classical and other genres of recordings.

The first film soundtrack LP album was released in 1978 though the advice of fledging Hollywood writer/director/actor Bruce Kimmel, who was offered an ownership but politely turned it down at that time and would return to head the label's Broadway division in the early 1990s.

The labels' sudden success was mostly due to the soundtracks they released more so than their classical releases and eventually the label leaned heavily towards soundtrack releases many of which became best sellers for the label that included John Carpenter's Halloween, Goblin's Dawn of the Dead, Fred Myrow's Phantasm, five albums of the music from the classic TV series, The Twilight Zone, which were huge sellers and their still popular reissue of the music from the late George A. Romero's classic horror film, Night of the Living Dead.

The label would eventually produce a handful of soundtrack releases on CD during the format's early stages as well as a dozen classical reissues from the LP counterparts.

All CD Club titles are limited edition and are usually available for purchase via the Varèse site as well as their current and older releases through them as well as other soundtrack retailers.

After 1989, Colosseum made several CD pressings that were exclusive to Europe and, because of their connection to Varèse, were given a VSD catalogue number.

From 1990 through 1997, Varèse Sarabande licensed their releases vintage and current to Soundtrack Listeners Communications (SLCS for short) in Japan through this label run by Yashiro Wada.

Yet, only up to 1000 copies were produced which included John Williams's "Space Camp", Henry Mancini's "Return of The Pink Panther" and "Two For The Road" and Dave Grusin's "Three Days of The Condor."

They also released soundtracks from Varese's LP catalogue that were exclusive for the Japanese market which included Joseph LoDuca's "Evil Dead/Evil Dead 2", John Harrison's "Creepshow" and David Mansfield's " Year of the Dragon".

After Soundtrack Listeners Communications (SLCS) ceased their operations, Varese made a new Japanese distribution deal with Volcano Records for a short period of time starting in 1998.