Chris Thilk passes along word that Paramount’s Iron Man website saw its traffic spike by 800 percent after a new ad for the film was unveiled during the Super Bowl. This is interesting for two reasons. First, it would give the indication that there’s still a sizable segment of the audience that learns about movies first via TV advertising.

Second: I’m so not the target audience for this movie, and I never get hardons for trailers, but the Iron Man trailer almost makes me understand what it feels like to be a 16 year-old boy (almost). It seems so clear to me that the full Iron Man trailer, which I believe had been online for a couple of weeks before the game, is far superior than the Super Bowl ad in terms of selling the movie as a narrative experience, but it was the TV ad that apparently got the job done, and it did it by getting down to basics. He builds a suit, he puts it on, he makes out with Gwyneth Paltrow, and he wins. This is what the people want. I can’t begrudge them that.

• “If the personalities of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters weren’t real, Christopher Guest would have invented them.” So begins a gushing review of Seth Gordon’s doc from FourFour. “It made me believe that video game scores matter, and I don’t think that anything matters, really.”
• Kristin at E! Online says she has “exclusive” information that the Arrested Development movie is going forward. No word yet on whether or not they’re taking any of our plot suggestions.
• If Kenneth the Page says the strike is almost over, it’s probably true.
• I think the entire internet must be hungover, because those are pretty much the only blog posts I could find in two hours of combing through and refreshing my feed reader that weren’t about the Super Bowl, Super Bowl ads, or Heidi Montag. Sorry. I’m sure it’ll be better tomorrow.

Idolator passes along the news that networks are feverishly trying to counterprogram against “the allegedly low starpower of the veteran rocker” at the center of Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show, Tom Petty. But how could that be? Peter Bogdanovich spent four hours telling us that Petty is the biggest, most beloved, and most important rock star IN THE WORLD. I simply refuse to believe that a work-for-hire hagiography might have embellished the appeal of the man who commissioned it. If Spike TV execs think their competitive eating special will out-draw “Free Fallin’”, then I can only assume they didn’t see Bogdanovich’s movie.

To be fair to Bogdanovich, Idolator’s Maura Johnston calls a bit of bullshit on the story, which originated with The Hollywood Reporter, and Idolator’s hipster commenters come out in full force to defend Petty’s demo-crossing likability.

That still doesn’t change the fact that the most interesting thing about Bogdanovich’s film is the way it betrays the fact that Petty paid him to make it, an issue which I went into in this podcast. Also of note: I sat through the entire four-hour film, totally sober, and didn’t nod off once, and I STILL don’t know who did the guitar solo on Runnin’ Down a Dream. I would have liked to find out because, to use what I believe is the appropriate parlance, it’s fucking sick.

• Today’s tale of strike woe comes from a meeting of the L.A. City Council’s Housing Community and Economic Development committee, where writers, economists and city officials (and not a single rep from the AMPTP) testified as to the wider implications of the work stoppage. Economists estimate that the strike has already cost the city of Los Angeles $342.7 million, and the tally could rise as high as $2.5 billion before it all ends. Among the sectors hardest hit is the local food industry, which contributes 13% of the city’s tax revenue.
• Sam Raimi is expected to direct New Line’s suddenly-in-the-works pair of Hobbit films, but first, he’s going to make an Evil Dead-esque “morality tale”called Drag Me To Hell.
• After barely coming to play in 2007, Hollywood studios are looking to promote their 2008 slate in a big way via Super Bowl ads. Among the scheduled highlights: Will Ferrell will appear in character in a co-branded spot, promoting both Budweiser and Ferrell’s upcoming New Line comedy, Semi-Pro. Oddly not mentioned in the Variety story, but relevant: with the writers strike heavily impacting ratings of regular programming, a massive sporting event like the Super Bowl suddenly becomes one of the only opportunities to use TV to reach a mass audience.