Win Some, Lose Some : Columbia’s Victor Kaufman and Lew Korman are out; Peter Guber is likely to be in. Studio chief Dawn Steel may go, but still make $7 million on the Sony deal.

Sony’s buyout of Columbia Pictures will set in motion yet another management shuffle at the studio, which has survived four regimes in 10 years. When the dust finally settles, Columbia studio chief Dawn Steel could be one of the casualties.

Steel, who stands to make $7 million from the studio sale, is flying to New York next week for the premiere of the Jane Fonda film “Old Gringo.” While there, industry sources say, she will meet with Sony executives and others to decide her future at the company.

Officially on the way out of Columbia are Victor A. Kaufman, president and chief executive, who could make as much as $30 million from the Sony sale, and his chief operating officer, Lew Korman. In a statement released Wednesday, Columbia Chairman Donald R. Keough said both men wish “to move on to other endeavors.”

Replacing Kaufman is likely to be Peter Guber, half of the successful Guber-Peters Entertainment Co., which was responsible for such movie hits as “Batman” and “Rain Man.” Guber reportedly was meeting Wednesday in New York with his attorney and top executives of Warner Communications, which stands to lose a lucrative production agreement with Guber-Peters.

Entertainment industry sources also say Walter Yetnikoff--who heads Sony’s CBS Records unit and was instrumental in this deal, as well as Sony’s 1987 buyout of CBS Records--will play a key role at a Japanese-owned Columbia Pictures. Yetnikoff could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

A key question under discussion is the future of the Guber-Peters company. Under one scenario, sources say, Sony would purchase the company, folding it into Columbia and bringing Guber’s partner, Jon Peters, into the studio. Under another plan, Peters would remain with an independently owned Guber-Peters--which has in the works such films as a “Batman” sequel and “Bonfire of the Vanities”--and the company would retain its production agreement with Warner.

“We’re hopeful that some kind of arrangement can be worked out,” said Michael P. Schulhof, vice chairman of Sony Corp. of America. A spokeswoman for Guber declined to comment on the offer.

Still undecided in all this reshuffling, say sources close to Guber, is the fate of Steel, who was hired to run the studio in 1987, three months after the forced departure of British producer David Puttnam.

Schulhof would say only that “Columbia thinks highly of her,” adding that he didn’t know her personally and declining to offer an assessment of Steel’s performance at Columbia. Steel was not involved in any discussions leading to Sony’s recruitment of Guber.

Those close to Steel say one factor that will determine whether she even wants to stay is whether Peters follows Guber to the company. Not only would this further crowd the corporate suite, it could spawn personality conflicts since Peters is considered much more abrasive than Guber. “They’re definitely a good guy-bad guy team,” one producer noted.

Relations between Steel and Guber are said to be cordial, though the pair last worked together seven years ago on “Flashdance,” when Guber served as an executive producer and Steel oversaw the project as a Paramount executive.

Steel has had mixed success in turning around the feature film side of Columbia’s operations. Five months after she took over the studio, the entertainment industry was hit by a writers strike, substantially slowing her efforts to the get projects off the ground.

In the early part of Steel’s tenure, Columbia primarily released a slow trickle of films left over from the Puttnam regime. Last summer, she finally got the chance to bring her own projects to the box office--and the results were disappointing.

Style Is a Factor

“Ghostbusters II” was supposed to be the studio’s showcase summer blockbuster, but its ticket sales were half that of the first film. Steel’s $22.5-million “Casualties of War” has grossed only $17.7 million. Another Columbia release, “When Harry Met Sally,” has grossed $78 million, but the studio must share that wealth with the film’s producer, Castle Rock Entertainment.

Another factor working against Steel, industry sources say, is Guber’s management style. Unlike Kaufman, Guber is a hands-on film producer with his own very distinct tastes. He doesn’t have experience in television and so will probably focus his attention on Columbia’s film operations.

Although not as abrasive as Peters, Guber has an aggressive personality that some friends say could conflict with Steel’s similarly tough, hard-driving style.

“You dismiss (Guber) at your own peril,” said Michael Apted, who directed “Gorillas in the Mist” for Guber-Peters. “He has a terrier-like persistence. . . . He’s fast and quick-witted. He talks fast, acts fast, eats fast.”

In a company where the partners appear to divide their responsibilities project by project, Guber was intimately involved in “Gorillas in the Mist,” the story of anthropologist Dian Fossey that didn’t do well at the box office but garnered five Oscar nominations, and “Rain Man,” the Dustin Hoffman-Tom Cruise film about an autistic-savant, which won four Oscars, including the award for Best Picture. “He goes for prestige projects,” one producer said of Guber.

Guber also aggressively pursued the film rights to Tom Wolfe’s best-selling novel, “Bonfire of the Vanities,” paying $500,000 at a time other studio executives were ignoring it because “Wall Street,” a movie on a similar subject, had just come out. “Bonfire” is in pre-production with Brian De Palma set to direct.

In contrast, it was Guber’s partner, Peters, who shepherded this summer’s big Warner hit, “Batman,” into production. The movie--a favorite particularly among adolescents--so far has grossed $244 million, spawning two sequels and providing Warner with a gold mine in merchandising on “Batman” products.

Guber also has a reputation for aggressively pursuing prized film projects and then laying out large sums of cash to get them. “They’re willing to pay top dollar,” said talent agent Robert L. Stein of the Leading Artists agency.

Last summer, Guber was part of a high-powered race for the film rights to the story of Chico Mendes, the Brazilian rubber tapper who became an international martyr among environmentalists after he was murdered, allegedly because of his efforts to save his country’s rain forest.

Mendes’ Groups Furious

The bidding for the project drew such big names as Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg and David Puttnam into fray. But bids were put on hold at one point at the behest of several union and environmental organizations that Mendes had led before his death.

Guber refused to sit still. Instead, he flew to Mendes’ tiny village in Brazil to woo the dead man’s widow and family, providing screenings of his films such as “Gorillas in the Mist.” Many weeks later, after laying out more than $1 million to secure film rights from Mendes’ family and friends--including payments to a Brazilian film company already partnered with the widow--Guber announced plans to make a movie.

The leaders of Mendes’ labor and environmental groups, who had been coordinating the film offers flowing in, were furious that Guber had gone behind their backs.