If you took a look at the Hollywood box office for the weekend of Jan. 30, you’d see something a bit surprising. Yes, Sam Raimi’s 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. It’s based on a horror video game where you pilot a submarine through an ocean of blood. It’s one of the top movies in America right now.
It’s a self-financed movie without a big studio behind it, and made by one guy. His real name is Mark Fischbach, but he’s better known by his YouTube name, Markiplier.
Mark has been making content for YouTube for over a decade. He was one of the early pioneers of “Let’s Play” videos—where he plays video games and comments on them for his fans. In his time on YouTube, he’s made a ton of different things.
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.
On a recent episode of What Next TBD, host Lizzie O’Leary spoke with Markiplier about his breakout success. This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Lizzie O’Leary: Was there a moment when you realized that Iron Lung was going to be a hit?
Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier: It was in gradual steps. I went out to an early screening and met some fans outside. I hadn’t 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’t 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’t believe it actually worked.
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.
I’m 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’s overwhelming.
Do you feel like what you are has changed? Like, have you gone from being a YouTuber—albeit a very successful one—to a filmmaker?
I don’t think I’ve 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’t 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’s no different. It’s just on a different skill level. I’ve 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’ve done that for pretty much all of my past projects and they just didn’t have headlines written about them. So for me, there’s no difference.
You worked really closely with Dave Szymanski, the game developer for Iron Lung. And I’m just curious, why did you pick that game? Because it doesn’t naturally make sense.
You’re totally right about that. There’s probably other IPs that have broader appeal. But I don’t 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.
What do you mean by different?
Usually, if you’re playing a horror game, you’re going into a building, either you have a gun or you’re defenseless, you have flashlight, you’re exploring the area and you’re opening it up and you can get a sense of the space. Iron Lung had so many restrictions. You’re in a submarine, you can’t see, you’ve got the worst camera in the world, and you could only hear what’s going on outside. And you’re set in this setting that has such terrible implications. Like the quiet rapture.
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’t 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.
You struggled to get studios and distributors to take you seriously. What was that process like?
I’ve always had that, it’s not really new. There were probably many more opportunities for deals to be made. But when I got to this point where I’m self-financing it and am able to edit myself, I am like, “Why would I take a deal that really cuts me out of my own thing that I made, and gives up all this control?” It’s the standard deal in Hollywood, and for its own good reasons.
But it just didn’t seem right for me to take those deals. There were many calls that I had where people didn’t understand what I was doing and what my channel was. But moreover, it was just a choice of, like, if I don’t have to, why would I?
In an interview, you mentioned a studio had told you that your movie wasn’t going to be like Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour. That is such a fascinating thing to me because they are nothing alike, but what is the implication?
The implication was that YouTubers, no matter how many subscribers they have or followers they have, are never gonna be like a mainstream celebrity. I think that’s what the comparison was, is they’re not as legitimate as these fans that go out for stadiums and show up for this real celebrity.
I don’t even care. I don’t want to be labeled a celebrity. I don’t 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’re not messed with.
When I was at the Emmys, a lot of those publications and the people doing the interviews on the red carpet didn’t wanna talk to me. And I didn’t want to talk to them. I hate red carpets. Not because I hate their publication, but because, like, I don’t like being there, I don’t like people just standing there and taking my picture. It’s just weird. But I thought, Hey, if you interview me, it’d be good for your publication. That’s not ego. I just have a lot of followers. They’ll find your stuff more if my name’s on it. And so I just didn’t understand why they wouldn’t. But it’s that stigma. It’s like YouTubers, they’re not real. Their followers aren’t real. But honestly, I think they’re more real than the followers of a lot of things out there.
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’m wondering, are you a trend? Are you a blip? Have you thought about it that way?
I haven’t, because honestly, it’s inevitable, I think. There are too many YouTubers to stop, and if they can’t be stopped anyway—people are able to put things out on their own—then it’s like, well, it’s going to happen no matter what.
I know there’s tons of YouTubers out there that have a lot of ideas, and some of them are gonna go, “Hey, look, Markiplier made something. That’s pretty cool, I think I could do that.” And then there’s gonna be others that are like, “Markiplier’s made the worst piece-of-shit movie ever. I gotta put something out there so people don’t not take us seriously as YouTubers.” And that’s fine too, that’s great. I think that there are multiple reasons for YouTubers to get their projects going and a little bit of confidence.
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?
I think it’s going to be a thing where I fund it myself and do it all, because I can. Not all, I don’t want to be constantly the person doing the directing, acting, writing, and editing. People probably looked at this and were like, “Oh, what an egotistical maniac.” But it was like, who else was gonna do it? I didn’t have anybody else. But there are plenty of other people who are more talented than I who can help out.
But safe to say, you’re gonna make another movie.
Oh yeah, many more, probably.
