Nintendo has officially welcomed Chris Meledandri, CEO of American animation studio Illumination, onto its board of directors. While Meledandri is perhaps most famous for his work on Despicable Me, he's also served as executive producer on several other highly successful animated movies, including The Secret Life of Pets, Sing, and 2018's The Grinch.
Meledandri has been working on the Super Mario Bros. animated movie, which was first announced back in 2018. While the upcoming film has been confirmed, fans of the Mushroom Kingdom have yet to see any teasers from the production on which will Meledandri serves as co-producer. As part of a partnership between Nintendo and Universal, more animated movies are planned alongside the Mario movie, though it's not known which Nintendo characters could be starring.
Plans to integrate Meledandri onto the Nintendo board of directors are now complete, with the news confirmed during Nintendo's 81st Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (via IGN). It's believed Nintendo plans to pivot towards movie releases alongside its games. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said of the appointment:
"[Chris Meledandri] has gained broad experience and insight as a corporate manager and in the field of entertainment, so we anticipate he will appropriately supervise our management from an objective perspective while providing valuable advice to our leadership."
Furukawa went on to confirm that Meledandri's role within Nintendo means he won't be directly involved in the "execution of operation", but instead has been appointed "as an independent and non-executive outside director". It was also revealed that Meledandri's addition to the board isn't directly associated with his work on the upcoming Super Mario Bros movie, set to release in 2022. Nintendo director Shigeru Miyamoto added: "We think that asking for Chris' input, as an expert with many years of experience in Hollywood, will be of great help to us in the future."
According to Nintendo, Meledandri has now been working with Miyamoto on the Super Mario Bros. movie for more than five years. It's hoped the film could continue the recent trend of successful video game adaptations seen in the last few years. Traditionally, making the jump from console to the big screen has left a bitter taste in the mouths of gamers. 1993's Super Mario Bros. movie got a director's cut recently but (despite its cult following) it's one of many movies based on a video game series that received poor reviews upon release. The Mario film has a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of just 29 percent.
While lots of video game movies flop, recent years have seen several successful box office wins for existing game franchises. Both 2019's Detective Pikachu and 2020's Sonic the Hedgehog movie were commercial hits, despite initial concern over live-action adaptations as opposed to the more traditional 2D animation seen in previous Pokémon movies and the Sonic TV show. Sonic the Hedgehog managed to surpass Pikachu at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing video game film in US history. While Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has now finished filming, there's been no word of a follow-up adventure for Detective Pikachu. Perhaps with Meledandri on the board of directors at Nintendo, Pikachu will get the sequel fans are waiting for.
Source: Nintendo's 81st Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (via IGN)
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