2 Film Directors To Lead London Olympics

The Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle, and Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry, have been tapped as creative bosses of the London 2012 Olympics. Stephen Daldry will be in overall creative charge of the Olympics and Paralympics, while Danny Boyle will be artistic director of the main opening ceremony. Boyle, whose new version of Frankenstein opens at the National Theatre later this year, said that he wanted to create a “thrilling, enthralling and captivating evening”. Orson Welles once described moviemaking as the greatest train set a boy ever had. The Olympics seem even more so. The opening Olympic Games ceremony has long fascinated film directors. Chinese director Zhang Yimou spent £70 million ($105 million) designing the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing event. And then of course there was Leni Riefenstahl at the 1936 Berlin games.