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Two very unusual films were released last weekend. One you will have absolutely heard of: Melania, the soft-focus hagiocumentary of the US first lady, which was plonked into thousands and thousands of often entirely empty cinemas across the globe by Amazon and Jeff Bezos in what is widely perceived as a favour-currier to the White House. Melania’s $7m takings in the US were marginally better than forecasted (and far ahead of the risible numbers for the film elsewhere) but, given the documentary’s vast cost, still represents a dramatic loss (especially if the rumour that Amazon paid for the film to be in some cinemas is true). Then again, this was a rare multimillion dollar film where the primary marker of success was probably not financial.
The other unusual film released last weekend you are less likely to have heard of, even though it dwarfed Melania’s takings. Adapted from a video game of the same name, Iron Lung is a grimy post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror in which a convict has to pilot a rusty submarine through an ocean of human blood on a distant planet. That peculiar plotline isn’t the most unusual thing about the film, though. No, what’s really remarkable is that Iron Lung came close to topping the US box office, earning $17m in its opening weekend, despite being entirely self-financed by an American YouTuber.
That YouTuber is Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach, who – though I must confess I had never heard of before writing this piece– is a huge figure in the gaming streamer world, attracting millions of views for his playthrough videos and skits. The charismatic, floppy-haired Fischbach first played through Iron Lung, a largely unheralded indie horror game, on his channel in 2022 and clearly liked it enough to sink $3m of his own money into writing, directing and starring in a film adaptation that is playing on thousands of screens across America and many more around the world.
Iron Lung hasn’t exactly awed the critics, but then that doesn’t seem terribly relevant here. Because it’s worth underscoring how unlikely this all is. Making a film and then getting it into cinemas at such scale is a matter for studios and experienced distributors, not a lone gamer (Fischbach was turned down by studios and distributors before opting to release Iron Lung himself). The barrier for entry is formidably high, especially when you factor in the usually pricey marketing costs for a release. Though that wasn’t an issue for Fischbach, who stuck to a tight production budget and swerved the usual paid media campaign in favour of promoting the life out of his film on his own platform to an army of engaged fans. Regular viewers of his channel would have been hearing about the film for the best part of two years, an insistent drumbeat of anticipation that must have made its release feel like an event.
Those fans, in turn, became active advocates for Iron Lung’s release on as many screens as possible, petitioning their local cinemas to show the film. It turned what might have been a niche release on a handful of screens into something far bigger, attracting the attention of the Regal cinema chain, who agreed to show the film at 99% of its US locations, including in the tiny pacific territory of Guam. The result is a indie movie hit of a very modern kind, built on blood, sweat and parasocial relationships.
How replicable a hit it is, however, is difficult to say. Self-financing and distributing a film is a forbidding prospect for most people, even those with an army of fans. And Fischbach is far more experienced than most YouTubers in more formal film-making, graduating from online shorts to a self-funded TV series (The Edge of Sleep) to a feature film. Plus it’s hard to imagine many YouTubers being willing to juggle making a full-length film with the already time-consuming job of streaming your life for the world to see (Fischbach found himself making Iron Lung in his spare time on weekends).
Equally though, current industry conditions might offer a tiny sliver of opportunity for the budding self-funded film-maker. It’s unlikely Iron Lung – or indeed Melania – would have had the space to show on thousands of screens a decade or more ago when, thanks to longer “theatrical windows”, films stuck around in cinemas for months. But, in an industry landscape where movies disappear on to on-demand in the space of weeks (and where there are fewer of them in cinemas in total than before Covid), there is room for unheralded releases to squeeze on to screens. Let’s hope it means more DIY efforts like Iron Lung – and perhaps fewer Melanias.
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