When will that "Road" open?

I've finally gotten around to reading Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning "The Road." I'm about a third of the way through it as I write this. I have put it off for a long time mainly for personal reasons -- I really didn't think I should be reading anything that depressing in the mood I was in. Another side, the side that eventually won out, wanted to read it before the film version was released.

Now the question has become when will the film be released. It was originally supposed to open in wide release around Thanksgiving and then it was moved to December. Now it turns out the film starring Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce may not open this year at all. A couple of reasons have been mentioned for the delay, but I think the real reason revolves around what drives all Hollywood decisions: money. If the movie is anything like the book I'm reading, this is really going to be a downer and I don't think people will flock to the theaters around the Holiday period to see something like this, especially if the economy remains as bad as it is now, and there is every reason to believe it will -- or get worse.

I've also heard that you can add "The Soloist" and "Defiance" to the list of films being pushed to 2009 and thus probably scrapped from this year's Oscar race. From the polling I had done, both Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx were receiving support for acting nominations for "The Soloist." Probably not so much now.