Chris Meledandri, Illumination CEO, to join Nintendo as Outside Director
Mario and Minions are one degree of separation away.
Chris Meledandri, the founder and CEO of animation studio Illumination, is joining Nintendo as an “Outside Director,” per Nintendo’s recent financial earnings report. The addition will occur “upon approval at the 81st Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on June 29, 2021.” The nature of the role has not been expanded upon, but this addition is not coming completely out of left field. Meledandri and Nintendo Creative Fellow Shigeru Miyamoto are working together to create the 3D-animated
Super Mario movie in development at Illumination, which Miyamoto is heavily involved in.
Nintendo Creative Fellow Shigeru Miyamoto does not do interviews especially often, but he has given a lengthy and insightful one to The New Yorker, revealing his perspective on various aspects of his career, as well as some lighter details. Regarding the latter, he explained that his children never really played the “My dad made Mario!” card growing up, as they just didn’t really think much of it. His kids did enjoy video games though, and in fact, according to Miyamoto, “They played a lot of Sega games, too, by the way.”
When asked if he felt any jealousy over his children playing the competition’s games, Miyamoto said, “Not jealous so much as inspired to try harder, so that they preferred the ones I made.” In particular, the Miyamoto kids enjoyed
If Miyamoto could redesign the world, he would make it more thoughtful
A stronger loving world, via Miyamoto
I wish I could make it so that people were more thoughtful and kind toward each other. It’s something that I think about a lot as I move through life. In Japan, for example, we have priority seating on train carriages, for people who are elderly or people with a disability. If the train is relatively empty, sometimes you’ll see young people sit in these seats. If I were to say something, they’d probably tell me: “But the train is empty, what’s the issue?” But if I were a person with a disability and I saw people sitting there, I might not want to ask them to move. I wouldn’t want to be annoying.