{"id":284362,"date":"2026-02-10T19:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/284362\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T19:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:15:11","slug":"how-markiplier-made-the-surprise-hit-movie-of-the-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/284362\/","title":{"rendered":"How Markiplier made the surprise hit movie of the winter."},"content":{"rendered":"

If you took a look at the Hollywood box office for the weekend of Jan. 30, you\u2019d see something a bit surprising. Yes, Sam Raimi\u2019s thriller Send Help is there. As is Melania, the movie. But above the pseudo-documentary about the first lady is a little movie called Iron Lung<\/a>. It\u2019s based on a horror video game where you pilot a submarine through an ocean of blood. It\u2019s one of the top movies in America right now.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a self-financed movie without a big studio behind it, and made by one guy.\u00a0His real name is Mark Fischbach, but he\u2019s better known by his YouTube name, Markiplier.<\/p>\n

Mark has been making content for YouTube for over a decade. He was one of the early pioneers of \u201cLet\u2019s Play\u201d videos\u2014where he plays video games and comments on them for his fans. In his time on YouTube, he\u2019s made a ton of different things.<\/p>\n

In 2022, he was nominated for an Emmy for In Space with Markiplier, a choose-your-own-adventure-style video posted to his channel. In 2024, he starred in The Edge of Sleep, a miniseries on Amazon Prime. Yet despite that success and his millions of subscribers, when Mark wanted to make Iron Lung, Hollywood still saw a YouTuber. So he proceeded alone.<\/p>\n

On a recent episode<\/a> of What Next: TBD, host Lizzie O\u2019Leary spoke with Markiplier about his breakout success. This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

Lizzie O\u2019Leary: Was there a moment when you realized that Iron Lung was going to be a hit?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier:\u00a0It was in gradual steps. I went out to an early screening and met some fans outside. I hadn\u2019t met fans in a long time. But when I saw the fans, and actually got their responses, I was like, Oh man, maybe people actually enjoy this. But it wasn\u2019t until Friday that we got numbers in for what the Thursday nights were. And then, I realized we might actually have a competition with Sam Raimi here. So I was making a lot of jokes about that. But then we kept the No. 1 spot for a while after that. The whole opening weekend I had a big smile on my face. I couldn\u2019t believe it actually worked.<\/p>\n

I watched this clip of you on your channel where you are tearing up about being No. 1. It seems like a very emotional process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m known to be a bit of a softy on my channel. But I just get emotional about it because this was a culmination of so many years of work for me. It was also the fact that people believed in it, people rallied and came to my support. It was really rewarding to be at the center of that and just feel all that. And so it\u2019s overwhelming.<\/p>\n

Do you feel like what you are has changed? Like, have you gone from being a YouTuber\u2014albeit a very successful one\u2014to a filmmaker?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve changed much at all because making a movie is a very high level of skill that has way more roles than you could ever do. I wrote, directed, and acted in it, and edited it, which I love editing. But I don\u2019t take that as an ego thing. For me, it was always just like, Well, I did that anyway when I was making YouTube videos. It\u2019s no different. It\u2019s just on a different skill level. I\u2019ve had 14 years to build up that skill level to get to this point. So it was only natural for me to do it. It just so happened that this one was a success. I\u2019ve done that for pretty much all of my past projects and they just didn\u2019t have headlines written about them. So for me, there\u2019s no difference.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Rebecca Onion
\n The Box-Office Story of the Weekend Isn\u2019t Melania. It\u2019s Something Much Weirder.
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

You worked really closely with Dave Szymanski, the game developer for Iron Lung. And I\u2019m just curious,\u00a0why did you pick that game? Because it doesn\u2019t naturally make sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u2019re totally right about that. There\u2019s probably other IPs that have broader appeal. But I don\u2019t really care about doing broad appeal. I do what appeals to me. And when I played the game, it was so different from any other game.<\/p>\n

What do you mean by different?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Usually, if you\u2019re playing a horror game, you\u2019re going into a building, either you have a gun or you\u2019re defenseless, you have flashlight, you\u2019re exploring the area and you\u2019re opening it up and you can get a sense of the space. Iron Lung had so many restrictions. You\u2019re in a submarine, you can\u2019t see, you\u2019ve got the worst camera in the world, and you could only hear what\u2019s going on outside. And you\u2019re set in this setting that has such terrible implications. Like the quiet rapture.<\/p>\n

So you have all these questions, like: Well, what happened? Where did everyone go? How was everyone coping? How are they able to get resources? Why can\u2019t they do this? Why am I here? What is outside? I liked that there were a lot of questions that could have answers if you dug deep enough, and there were more answers to find.<\/p>\n

You struggled to get studios and distributors to take you seriously. What was that process like?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always had that, it\u2019s not really new. There were probably many more opportunities for deals to be made. But when I got to this point where I\u2019m self-financing it and am able to edit myself, I am like, \u201cWhy would I take a deal that really cuts me out of my own thing that I made, and gives up all this control?\u201d It\u2019s the standard deal in Hollywood, and for its own good reasons.<\/p>\n

But it just didn\u2019t seem right for me to take those deals. There were many calls that I had where people didn\u2019t understand what I was doing and what my channel was. But moreover, it was just a choice of, like, if I don\u2019t have to, why would I?<\/p>\n

In an interview,<\/a> you mentioned a studio had told you that your movie wasn\u2019t going to be like Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cEras\u201d tour. That is such a fascinating thing to me because they are nothing alike, but what is the implication?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The implication was\u00a0that YouTubers, no matter how many subscribers they have or followers they have, are never gonna be like a mainstream celebrity. I think that\u2019s what the comparison was, is they\u2019re not as legitimate as these fans that go out for stadiums and show up for this real celebrity.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t even care. I don\u2019t want to be labeled a celebrity. I don\u2019t want YouTubers to have to deal with any of the stuff that traditional Hollywood celebrities have to deal with. I like that YouTubers exist in this pocket where they can do their own thing, they\u2019re not messed with.<\/p>\n

When I was at the Emmys, a lot of those publications and the people doing the interviews on the red carpet didn\u2019t wanna talk to me. And I didn\u2019t want to talk to them. I hate red carpets. Not because I hate their publication, but because, like, I don\u2019t like being there, I don\u2019t like people just standing there and taking my picture. It\u2019s just weird. But I thought, Hey, if you interview me, it\u2019d be good for your publication. That\u2019s not ego. I just have a lot of followers. They\u2019ll find your stuff more if my name\u2019s on it. And so I just didn\u2019t understand why they wouldn\u2019t. But it\u2019s that stigma. It\u2019s like YouTubers, they\u2019re not real. Their followers aren\u2019t real. But honestly, I think they\u2019re more real than the followers of a lot of things out there.<\/p>\n

Do you think the YouTuber-to-movie pipeline is gonna grow? I mean, Chris Stuckmann made Shelby Oaks. It did not do that well. I\u2019m wondering, are you a trend? Are you a blip? Have you thought about it that way?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t, because honestly, it\u2019s inevitable, I think. There are too many YouTubers to stop, and if they can\u2019t be stopped anyway\u2014people are able to put things out on their own\u2014then it\u2019s like, well, it\u2019s going to happen no matter what.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What Gringos Might Have Missed About Bad Bunny\u2019s Halftime Show
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

I know there\u2019s tons of YouTubers out there that have a lot of ideas, and some of them are gonna go, \u201cHey, look, Markiplier made something. That\u2019s pretty cool, I think I could do that.\u201d And then there\u2019s gonna be others that are like, \u201cMarkiplier\u2019s made the worst piece-of-shit movie ever. I gotta put something out there so people don\u2019t not take us seriously as YouTubers.\u201d And that\u2019s fine too, that\u2019s great. I think that there are multiple reasons for YouTubers to get their projects going and a little bit of confidence.<\/p>\n

For you, will the next thing be a self-funded project where you do it all, or is the next thing you walk into some big studio, and they take your call now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s going to be a thing where I fund it myself and do it all, because I can. Not all, I don\u2019t want to be constantly the person doing the directing, acting, writing, and editing. People probably looked at this and were like, \u201cOh, what an egotistical maniac.\u201d But it was like, who else was gonna do it? I didn\u2019t have anybody else. But there are plenty of other people who are more talented than I who can help out.<\/p>\n

But safe to say, you\u2019re gonna make another movie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, many more, probably.<\/p>\n

Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you took a look at the Hollywood box office for the weekend of Jan. 30, you\u2019d see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,9541,85,46,397,8825,678],"class_list":["post-284362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-horror","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies","tag-video-games","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}