It was already reported in early May that the CEO of Illumination Studios, Chris Meledandri, had been nominated to join Nintendo's board of directors. There technically wasn't any guarantee that he would actually be accepted, but there seemed to be little reason to believe he wouldn't. It's now been confirmed that his nomination has gone through with minimal issue, making him an official member of the board.
The confirmation comes from Nintendo's 81st Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. During a Q&A session, both Nintendo's president Shuntaro Furukawa and Shigeru Miyamoto, one of the company's most prominent developers/directors, were asked about Meledandri's nomination and what sort of impact he might have on the company's future.
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Furukawa says that Meledandri has experience working as a manager within entertainment, thanks to his work producing the Despicable Me and Minions film franchises. Furukawa believes Meledandri will be able to supervise management and lend advice to leadership, and that his experience and knowledge will be beneficial to the board's decision making.
However, he does stress that Meledandri has been appointed as an independent and outside director. While he is the first American citizen to hold such a role at Nintendo, he won't directly be involved with Nintendo's business or make any major decisions on its behalf.
Both Furukawa and Miyamoto also briefly mention the upcoming animated Super Mario movie, which is being helmed by Illumination. Miyamoto says that it has been over five years now since he began working on the project with Meledandri and adds, through their relationship, he came to understand Nintendo's way of thinking. No doubt this was a contributing factor to his nomination being approved.
Nintendo is looking to expand its content in a big way, as has already been demonstrated with the aforementioned movie and the Super Nintendo World theme park, which opened in Japan earlier this year as part of Universal Studios. Other Universal locations across the world, including Orlando, Florida, will be receiving their own versions of the park as well.
Miyamoto points out that, just because Nintendo is a games company, that doesn't mean it can easily make movies. And with the movie business going through something of a transformation at the moment, Miyamoto believes having Meledandri on board to provide input will greatly help Nintendo. Furukawa adds that other projects besides the Mario movie are in progress, although he obviously doesn't say what any of them are. Furukawa has previously said that he's interested in making more animated adaptations of Nintendo's IPs so it's very likely that these are what he's referring to.
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