Blur, Gorillaz frontman Albarn to direct '12 Opening Ceremony?
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was such a resounding success that it's hard to imagine that anyone didn't love the Zhang Yimou-directed spectacle except, perhaps, for the people in London charged with following it up in 2012. After the drums and the scroll and the hot Paraguayan, anything in comparison will be like the act that went on after The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
London organizers admit as much. They know that they won't have the money, time or unbridled access to 20,000 people like those in China did. But, as the chief executive of the London Games said, "that's the beauty of contrast."
And that contrast may be beautiful indeed. Reports out of London say that Blur frontman and Gorillaz co-founder Damon Albarn is on a short list to be named the artistic director of the 2012 opening ceremony. Another name mentioned is that of Stephen Daldry, the British director who helmed The Reader. That's a win-win in my opinion, as we'll either get songs like this or copious shots of Kate Winslet naked in a bathtub.
Albarn and his Gorillaz partner Jamie Hewlitt put together the title sequence to British network's Olympics coverage:
