The Road Movie

The material seems intended more for brooding literary types than multiplex moviegoers: Cormac McCarthy's novel "The Road" depicts a sunless, hopeless world in which cannibalism and enslavement are everyday realities and wildlife is extinct. But since being published last year, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has had Hollywood talking, winding up on the nightstands of Sean Penn, director Peter Berg and Brad Pitt, among others.

"The Road," which has been the subject of incredible fascination in the blogosphere in recent weeks, is moving its release to 2009. The feature adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which stars Viggo Mortensen, originally had been scheduled for next month, but its filmmaking team has made it clear that the movie just isn't ready for release. Its producers, 2929 Productions chief Marc Butan and producer Nick Wechsler, said in a statement Wednesday, "Depicting McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale involves an incredible amount of visual effects, and we want to make sure to give this beautiful movie the time it needs to be perfected."