Early career

Meledandri's first job in the film industry came when he worked as an assistant to executive producer Daniel Melnick on the set of Footloose.^[3] He co-founded the production company The Meledandri/Gordon Company (with Mark Gordon) until he left in 1991. Meledandri afterwards was the producer for a series of small films, before working as a producer for the 1993 Disney film Cool Runnings, which was a financial success.^[3][6] Soon after Meledandri was hired by 20th Century Fox, where executives presumed that the success of Cool Runnings showcased Meledandri's ability to produce financially successful family films.^[6] After a series of collaborations with filmmaker John Hughes, Meledandri was placed in charge of 20th Century Fox Animation.^[6] One of the first films released under Meledandri's tutelage was the Don Bluth-directed animated science fiction film Titan A.E. (2000), a costly box office bomb whose failure almost caused him to be fired, and which caused Fox Animation Studios to be shut down.^[6]

1998–2007: Blue Sky Studios

In 1998, Meledandri led Fox's acquisition of fledgling visual effects house Blue Sky Studios, which became a commercially successful production studio. He oversaw the creative and business operations of Blue Sky, which became wholly owned by Fox.^[7][8] While at the studio, Meledandri supervised and/or executive produced films including Ice Age (2002), Robots (2005), Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) and Horton Hears a Who! (2008). He also produced two animated shorts, Gone Nutty (2002) and No Time for Nuts (2006); both were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

2007–present: Illumination

Meledandri left as President of 20th Century Fox Animation in early 2007, being replaced by Vanessa Morrison, and founded Illumination, an animation company that was co-owned by Universal Pictures, which fully financed and owned the films.^[9] Fox had attempted to retain Meledandri, but it was reported by the Los Angeles Times that Universal's offer of an ownership stake in Illumination had persuaded him to switch.^[7] Meledandri received a share of Illumination's box office earnings as part of his contract with Universal, and as of 2011, he also owned an undisclosed stake in the production company.^[3] In 2010, Illumination released its first film, Despicable Me, which became successful. Meledandri built a good relationship with chairman of NBCUniversal Stephen Burke, who liked Meledandri's propensity for producing animated films on a relatively low budget.^[3] Illumination released a film version of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, which continued the successful collaboration between Meledandri and the Dr. Seuss estate.^[5] He also produced all of Despicable Me's various sequels and spin-offs.

2016–present: DreamWorks Animation and Nintendo

On April 28, 2016, NBCUniversal announced its intent to acquire competing studio DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion. It was announced that Meledandri would oversee both Illumination and DreamWorks following the completion of the merger.^[10] However, it was later announced that Meledandri had declined to oversee DreamWorks, and will instead be a consultant at the studio. On November 6, 2018, it was announced that Meledandri will be collaborating with Universal and DreamWorks to revive the Shrek franchise.^[11][12][13] Meledandri intends, however, to retain the original voice actors, as he believes they were perhaps the most memorable parts of the series. The first film in this collaboration, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, in which Meledandri served as executive producer, was released in December 2022 to universal critical acclaim and commercial success.^{[citation needed]}

In January 2018, Nintendo announced during a fiscal meeting that Illumination would be developing an animated Mario film and that Meledandri will co-produce the film with Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. On July 5, 2021, it was reported that Meledandri would join Nintendo's board of directors "as an independent and non-executive outside director" to advise Nintendo as the company develops more films under Nintendo Pictures.^[2]

Films