By Cynthia Littleton
Paris Games End, Tom Cruise Accepts Olympic Mission for LA
Producer Ben Winston made Los Angeles look so good in November 2021 when he directed the CBS concert special “Adele: One Night Only” that he was the obvious choice to produce the handover from Paris to LA for the Summer Games closing ceremony on Sunday.
Typically, the handover from one host city to the next takes place at the same location as the closing ceremony. Winston, a 13-time Emmy winner with a flair for live TV and spectacle, had bigger plans when he got the call from LA28’s leaders in January 2022. For Winston, doing it all in Paris didn’t make sense, given the moment’s huge potential to become a transcontinental live TV stunt stretching from the City of Lights to the City of Angels.
The idea for what to do with 12 minutes of TV time watched by tens of millions of people around the world came to Winston “in about five minutes” during his first conversation with LA28 officials. The biggest challenge wasn’t recruiting participants, but keeping it all a secret.
