Markiplier can breathe easy, now that Iron Lung — the horror movie that he wrote, directed, stars in and self-distributed — stunned Hollywood by surpassing $17 million domestically in its opening weekend and coming in just behind Sam Raimi‘s Send Help as the frame’s top title.
This feat, which included outgrossing other new features like Jason Statham’s Shelter and the much-ballyhooed Melania documentary from Amazon MGM Studios, was even more impressive considering that the YouTube content creator, whose real name is Mark Fischbach, had met with numerous studios and distributors in hopes of landing a deal for its release. Instead, Markiplier, who has posted popular video game-focused content for over a decade to his audience that now stands at 38 million subscribers, came away empty-handed, and among the rejections was an executive openly mocking the notion that the movie would find success. (More on that is below.)
Clearly, Markiplier had the last laugh. The film, centering on a convict (Markiplier) forced to navigate a submarine through a moon’s ocean of blood, played on more than 4,000 screens worldwide over the weekend, with Bill and Sam Herting from Centurion Film Service handling bookings after a grassroots fan campaign pushed major chains to show it. With a $3 million production budget, Iron Lung has already surpassed $20 million globally, and Markiplier pockets half of the global gross.
During a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker was upbeat and grateful without expressing outward bitterness against the companies that turned him down. Markiplier discusses how he hopes to change the perception of content creators segueing to movies, whether he would want to collaborate with a studio on a future project and his enthusiasm about setting the record for fake blood.
How does this all feel?
It feels great. All weekend, I was just looking at my phone. A big smile on my face all weekend. I’ve loved making jokes and little memes about [hopefully] being No. 1. (Laughs.) It was a fun race, all the way up until [Sunday] night — damn, man. I was so honored by my fans, just coming out in droves, and even new people that don’t know me, giving it a chance.
You talked to THR in 2024 for your self-released series Edge of Sleep, and there was a mention in that interview that Iron Lung was hoping to get theatrical. What happened since then?
I would say there were a lot of conversations that happened. I had a lot of meetings with various companies of all kinds, talking about the possibility for the movie, and most passed. There were some offers, but there was never something that I was thinking would be good for me as a creator or respectful of me and my audiences at the scale that we are right now.
In what way?
It’s just not a very advantageous deal to take if I give up control of it or can’t control the marketing. If I am not in control of those things, then why did I go this far to fund it, direct it, edit it, if I’m going to hand it off at the very end just to get it in theaters? This whole time, I’ve only really had weekends to work on the movie because I have the YouTube channel, podcasts and clothing company, so that takes most of the week with obligations. I get the weekend for my hobby, which apparently is “movie.” Finally meeting up with Centurion Films — Bill and Sam Herting, who helped get it in the initial batch of theaters. Originally, it was supposed to do three theaters. I said, “I think I have an audience that could fill at least 50.” So we went to 50 or 60. That magnified and multiplied and went up and up and up and up from there.
You’ve said you have fans working at movie theaters who helped let those companies know about the high audience demand?
It’s not just that. I definitely have fans that worked in movie theaters. My fans are everywhere, in all walks of life. There were just so many people that asked [the theater chains to screen it]. There were enough people that asked that people thought it was bots. At that scale, it’s hard for other people to imagine that so many people are asking. But it’s a factor. I have 38 million subscribers, and even if a fraction of those are still active and watching each video, it’s still millions of people. There’s a lot of people out there that are willing to help and just really, really, really believed in what I was doing here. I’m super grateful and owe them pretty much everything.
Is it surprising to you that you didn’t get a better offer from the studios, given the success of Edge of Sleep? Is there a stigma with being a YouTube creator?
Probably. There still is a stigma against YouTube. One of the reasons why I really wanted this to work — at least some degree of success; I didn’t expect this degree — is to help move that mountain. It’s not like I’m going to topple the mountain by myself. It has to be toppled and then toppled again, until it becomes normalized. Once it becomes normalized, then it can become boring, and it’s like, “Of course a YouTuber can do this,” and there’s nothing to question about it.
The other factor doesn’t surprise me because it’s an out-there movie concept. It’s a video game adaptation that is not done in the way that they probably would traditionally do video game adaptations. You have the belief that, “If we’ve seen this before, and it hasn’t worked very well, why would we stick our neck out?” I don’t blame them for that. For me, I don’t care about making a profit. I’m always happy to bet on myself and my fans, and it’s never let me down thus far.
Were there conversations with legacy studios, or more like streaming services?
We had a whole slew of conversations, but it wasn’t ever really about streaming first. I knew I wanted it in theatrical, which already was a high bar. I won’t tell you exactly who I talked to, but I’d say I talked to a few people from a few different organizations about it. I’ve had some conversations with some people where they were 100 percent not about me, and that’s fine. Not everyone needs to know me, like me. This one call that I remember, they were not about me. They said, “This isn’t going to be something where it’s like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour [concert film].” I also didn’t think that at the time, but now that we’re here, it’s funny looking back on that.
Hollywood seems to want to get people back to theaters, but it’s interesting if they have trouble working with people who can do that for them.
They’re probably afraid because the recipes that have been working in the recent years is: Bigger budget means bigger return. This becomes a rat race where they chase down the path of most success, and the biggest returns come out at the billion-dollar level. It’s like, “Put everything in one basket so that you can hope that it makes the biggest return, and don’t think about the smaller projects.” This movie drew out a lot more people that have not seen a movie in about six months or so. It’s bringing people back to the theaters, and that’s a whole untapped market.
What was the biggest challenge during production?
The biggest challenge was being in front of the camera and behind the camera. I’ve done that a lot, but this one had a physical limitation where I was up in a set that was literally sealed shut. We had screws in place for the door, and we would move all the stairs away. That whole process takes about five minutes to get up, and it takes just as long to get down. So I had my wife, Amy, behind the camera looking at every shot, and we had a radio so she could talk to me. It built up this trust, but it’s still very difficult.
This is the largest amount of fake blood ever used in a movie?
It is, by a good margin. My estimate puts it at about 80,000 gallons. [The 2013 Evil Dead remake] that had the record [of a reported 70,000 gallons], they never confirmed anything about it! They were just like, “It had that blood rain scene.” No discredit to the movie, obviously. It’s funny that that’s a Sam Raimi [franchise], and this weekend was up against Sam Raimi. If you watch my movie, it’s obvious that we have the record because of just how much blood was there. But I know how much! I did math. The first order came in on a full semi-truck.
Do you want to keep acting or focus more on filmmaking?
I’m definitely going to act again, but I like the post[-production] side a lot more. I don’t need to be in the main character role. This was my final test — my thesis of combining all my skills. A lot more pre-production would have helped this one. I treat it all as learning.
Are you getting calls from studios, and would you work with them in the future, or did Iron Lung prove that you don’t need them?
I am getting some calls. I don’t want this to come across as a big middle finger to every studio, like, “You and me are enemies now!” That’s not how I view anything. I know that a production deal with a studio is the dream for a lot of people. A business needs assurances because businesses are skittish, so they want to know that it’s going to make them their money back. They have these guardrails and controls stipulated in the contracts. I don’t need that; I don’t want that. So I’m just going to keep going on my own, unless the studio — in the weirdest scenario — was like, “Here’s an unlimited budget, and also we’re never going to give you a note.” As far as what I’m doing, I can do something bigger with a more efficient budget next time, and that doesn’t count cheaping out on the labor. I want to feed people even better than I fed them this time.
Have you decided on your next film?
Not yet. I have many ideas for what I’ve wanted to do next for a while now. I don’t want to always adapt things. I have some original ideas because most everything I’ve ever done has been original, besides this one. But I think that there’s a world where I could approach other game developers to adapt their games, or I could approach other storytellers. There’s plenty of good scripts written out there. I don’t know where they are, but I hear there’s a pile of them somewhere in Hollywood. Maybe if I could find that room and dive in a little bit, that might be fun.
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