Nintendo's recently issued financial report for the recently-ended fiscal year contained some interesting news. Not only did Nintendo have a record-breaking year, its most profitable in history, but it's also indicating some interesting changes in the future. Specifically, it looks like movies and animation may become a larger priority within Nintendo. That's implied due to the now confirmed nomination of Chris Meledandri to Nintendo's board as Outside Director.
Meledandri is connected to Nintendo in a very interesting way. He's the CEO of the American animation studio Illumination. It's most famously known as the studio behind the Minions movies, as well as Despicable Me. More importantly, however, it's currently working on Nintendo's upcoming movie based on Mario. In other words, Meldandri being nominated for Nintendo's board implies that Nintendo is looking to bring Illumination and animated film into the company's wheelhouse, even before production is wrapped on the Mario movie.
An Outside Director isn't an executive position, so Meledandri wouldn't be an employee or stakeholder and wouldn't make formal decisions as to the direction of Nintendo as it currently stands. Rather, Meledandri would be paid to provide an outside and theoretically unbiased perspective on matters of the board. There's obviously an issue of wanting the Outside Director's other business efforts to be directly relatable to the company, or potentially event influenceable.
That said, Meledandri is not actually part of Nintendo's board yet, he's only been nominated. The decision as to whether Meledandri will be approved for the board will be made on June 29 as part of Nintendo's next Annual General Meeting of shareholders. There's no reason to believe that Meledandri won't be accepted, so long as he has the support of the other board members. Sometimes these types of business decisions are more complicated than they appear, however.
There are no direct implications of Meledandri joining Nintendo's board, but there are implications. Meledandri's increased involvement in Nintendo's business could imply a much bigger effort by the company to produce Nintendo-branded movies like Mario. As has been made clear by movies like the Sonic the Hedgehog film, there's definitely an audience.
It's especially easy to come to this conclusion following an interview with Nintendo global president Shuntaro Furukawa, in which he states other film projects are being worked on. For worried Nintendo fans, Furukawa also makes clear that the company will continue being very protective of how its IP is licensed. Nintendo won't let anything inhibit its creativity when making games, even movies. But Nintendo's also not going to let an easy profit pass it by.
Source: IGN