• With the fate of Heath Ledger’s final projects up in the air, Variety takes a look at some past films that were effected by the sudden deaths of their respective stars. Would Shrek have been as popular with Chris Farley as the voice of the titular ogre? Would Interview With the Vampire be better with River Phoenix? Should Jane Harlow’s final film, Saratoga, have been scrapped?
• WGA reps and studio execs enter a second day of informal talks today, which should be more exciting that it feels to me. Maybe it’s because I just read this detail of how badly the writer’s strike is effecting the economy, and now my head hurts.
• After confirming that Tony Gilroy had directed him to a second Oscar nomination, Tom Wilkinson has decided to reunite with the Michael Clayton director for the pharmaceutical company drama Duplicity. He is joined by Billy Bob Thornton and joins Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.
• Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida are now considered a “husband-and-wife team” for writing an original screenplay that Oscar-winner Sam Mendes will direct as a low-budget comedy. Currently untitled, the movie will be about a young couple trying to decide where in the U.S. is best to raise a child. It could be a very short film if the couple just reads the latest issue of Fit Pregnancy magazine.

Vulture has a review of Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze’s script for the latter’s next directorial project, Where the Wild Things Are. The verdict? “It is really, really good.”

Eggers and Jonze — mostly, we suspect, Eggers — touchingly sketch this troubled family unit and carefully track the rising frustration and alarm Max feels as his world becomes darker and more unhappy, until, on page 21, he runs away, climbs aboard a boat, and sails to the island of the Wild Things.

There Jonze’s influence begins to be felt, as the enormous creatures — with names like Carol, Alexander, and K.W. — look to Max as their King, and in a series of marvelous adventures, wrestle tornadoes, eat mud, and tame hawks. Always, though, there’s a subtle undercurrent of menace, and it becomes clear that while spinning a yarn, Jonze and Eggers are also taking us on a tour of Max’s psyche, as he works out so many of the issues that plague his young life.

More here. No real spoilers to speak of.