However, during the last Oscar season, there was a good deal of bitching about “dark movies,” particularly No Country for Old Men (which won the major Oscars anyway) and There Will be Blood.

This year, the big movies look to be Milk (where the lead character is murdered), Frost/Nixon (enough said), and Revolutionary Road (which looks to be kind of soap operaish, based on the trailer). Senecdoche, NY might be pretty good, or it might be too weird for most audiences (Charlie Kaufman, after all).

Most of the test screening review comments about The Road that people published online were basically positive if people were familiar with the book.

So holding back The Road seems bizarre, except that it does fit into the downsizing trend of each studio releasing fewer movies per year.