Chris Meledandri, CEO of film and animation studio Illumination, today officially joined Nintendo's board as an outside director. He was elected and officially appointed to the position at Nintendo's 81st Annual General Meeting on Tuesday.
The American, best known as the producer of the "Despicable Me" and "Minions" films, was the first Westerner to serve as an outside director at Nintendo. Meledandri founded Illumination in 2007 after nearly a decade at 20th Century Fox, where he oversaw the creative and business operations of Blue Sky Studios, the CGI animation company behind ice age films.
He is currently working on Illumination's Super Mario animated film with Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo, which is scheduled to be released in 2022.
In a Fast Company feature released in April, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said the company was also considering animating other Nintendo game series, but suggested that it would depend on whether it could find a partner to "dig deeper" into the source material.
In appointing Meledandri to his new role in May, Nintendo said: "We would like to nominate him as a new outside director, expecting him to properly supervise the management of our company from an objective point of view, while providing valuable advice to our company, as a leader in the entertainment field, he has extensive experience and insight." However, Mr Meledandri will be nominated as an outside director and he will not serve as a member of the Audit and Oversight Committee. We are confident that Mr. Meledandri's participation will help ensure a balance of diversity in our countries, including enhancing our global vision, knowledge and experience, and further enhancing the efficiency of our Board of Directors." ”