That said, let’s stop it with the “free advertising” line. It’s just that, a line. If the studios felt they needed bloggers to spread the word (ala Snakes on a Plane) they would say so. The “free advertising” defense is a lame rhetorical talking point used by people clutching at straws for some way to defend what is plainly eavesdropping and violation of privacy. The argument sounds weak and it is.
If this was some Independent picture with no budget and no marketing money then it wouldn’t be a problem (funny how bloggers never do these kamikaze photo-nabs for small indy pics, ain’t it?). But Iron Man is going to have all kinds of promotional money going into it. Its going to be Paramounts’s Big-Gun summer movie of 2008, so they don’t need any help getting the word out. All this does is reveal the plot and story points over a year before the flick comes out, leaving the assorted snippets open to all kinds of interpretation. Franchise films (especially comic book movies) have active and vocal fanbase’s built in. None of them are ever totally satisfied and if they don’t see during production what they think they should be seeing, then they’ll try to kill the film through word of mouth (see: CraigNotBond). They don’t know or care that half the shooting schedule of these summer blockbusters are spent shooting on a soundstage where no one has access so it’s impossible for spys with only a few grainy pics and video from one day of shooting to judge what the final package will be.

That said, these movies represent a HUGE investment for the studios. Spoilers hurt the profit potential of a movie. Consider how much bad press is out there for Transformers already even though Bay and Co. have done an excellent job of keeping a huge summer spectacular fairly under wraps. The movies are an investment, and the studios are just doing the good work of protecting that investment. But going after one site isn’t going to stop this kind of thing. Having a sit-down (or email exchange) with the blog/site owners and laying down ground rules would be a much better thing and avoid this kind of unpleasantness.

And as for security, in my hometown we just got through having The Cleaner with Samuel Jakcson shooting, small movie, small budget, and the cops closed off streets for five blocks in all directions. You couldn’t get anywhere near the set. Same for Harold & Kumar 2 when it shot here. Small movies, but they got big protection. And Denzel Washington and Forest Whittaker will get the same treatment when they start shooting The Great Debaters here next week. The studios should focus on more than just the blogs.