$50 Million Reasons Why Markiplier's Iron Lung is a Win for Every Indie Creator!

Massive congrats to Markiplier! His movie Iron Lung has crossed $50 million at the box office worldwide, and he self-funded it, self-distributed it and did all the marketing himself. I watched it in a cinema here in the Philippines and absolutely loved it. In this video I break down how he pulled it off (no spoilers!) and why it's huge news for anyone building a YouTube community, an app, a game or a business online.

Who is Markiplier and What is Iron Lung?

Markiplier is one of the huge OG YouTubers, with nearly 39 million subscribers. Since around 2012 he has focused on delivering value for his community, treating them with respect and listening to their feedback. Iron Lung is the first movie he has released to cinemas, where people can physically go and watch it in movie chains around the world.

It's adapted from the indie game Iron Lung by David Szymanski. You're a convict welded inside a makeshift submarine, sent down to explore an ocean of blood on a distant moon. Markiplier played the whole game on his channel about 3 years ago (it takes about 45 minutes) and that video got 16 million views. He then worked closely with David to bring the same world to the big screen.

Comparing the two side by side, it's basically one for one. Same cabin layout, same controls, same x-ray screen in the back corner, even the fire extinguisher is in the same spot. Kudos to David for creating a world that holds up as a 2-hour movie. The game is about 10 bucks on Steam if you want to check it out.

How Did a YouTuber Out-Distribute Hollywood?

He didn't have a distribution budget, so he leaned on his community. The plan started with just three cinemas, then 60 theatres in the US. Then two clever moves took it global:

• He commented on the trailer asking fans to contact their local cinema by phone, email, website form or in person and ask them to list it
• He offered cinemas a 50/50 revenue split, which made it really attractive for them to say yes

The result was a fan-led campaign that pushed it out to 4,152 cinemas worldwide.

There was some drama too. During launch weekend Iron Lung disappeared from the daily domestic box office charts for about a day. Markiplier made a video about it, the community backlash kicked in, and magically it was back the next day. No idea what happened there, but it smelled like funny business.

Show Me the Numbers!

The sources don't all line up perfectly, but the picture is clear:

Item	Figure
Budget	About $3M at launch, just over $4M after later edits
Opening weekend	Over $21M (CBR), $18.19M or 44% of total (The Numbers)
US and Canada	About $41M, roughly 80% of the total
United Kingdom	Nearly $3M
Australia	$2.6M
Mexico	$1.4M
Philippines	$1.2M
Worldwide	$50.6M to $51.6M depending on the source

That puts it at number 37 on the list of all-time highest grossing independent films, and number one for self-distributed movie revenue. Most of the other films on that list come from studios with teams of 100 people and millions in marketing budget. Daily takings are levelling out to around $100,000 a day now, so I expect it will eventually leave cinemas, but the 50/50 split could give it a long tail.

He's making money from merch on ironlung.com as well, with posters, shirts, bomber jackets, stickers and mousepads. When the custom popcorn boxes couldn't be made in time, he released the 3D model so fans could print their own and bring them to the cinema. Decentralised fan-made merch, love it!

What About the Movie Itself?

Mark did a great job acting and the atmosphere is super intense, a proper slow burn horror. The soundtrack is by Andrew Hulshult, who has done music for games like Quake, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, which I played a lot. He kept the rights to the music and released the soundtrack with something like 56 tracks. Watch the trailer to get a feel for it.

An indie game dev made the game, an indie creator adapted it, and with no middleman it became a box office hit. The Hollywood model is being threatened, and that's great news for every indie builder out there. Go see it while it's still in cinemas, and let me know what you thought! If you're building your own indie thing, come join us at liberati.life. Cheers!