Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee star in The Road.

It looks as if we’ll have to wait another year for the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The film, which stars Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron, was originally scheduled to debut later this fall as a definite Oscar contender, but the Los Angeles Times‘ Big Picture blog reports that it won’t be ready.

In the end, this will probably be a good thing. I can understand why the film’s producers’ — Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s 2929 Productions — wanted to get it out by the end of 2008 for Oscar consideration. But I wonder if Oscar voters would really get behind a second-straight Cormac McCarthy movie, following last year’s champ, No Country for Old Men?

Maybe waiting a year will put enough distance between the two films so that The Road can stand on its own.

Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Co.