What Markiplier Learned From Releasing ‘Iron Lung’

When I first spoke to Markiplier a few weeks ago about “Iron Lung,” he was in the middle of an experiment: make a movie without the system, release it without a traditional distributor, and trust the audience he’d built himself.

At the time, demand alone got the film onto 2,500 screens. By opening weekend (with Bill and Sam Herting’s Centurion Film Service handling the bookings) that number grew to more than 4,000.

As of Monday morning, “Iron Lung” had grossed about $22.4 million worldwide. It was the #2 film, just behind Sam Raimi’s “Send Help,” a Disney release. And — here’s a sentence you almost never hear — it turned a serious profit opening weekend. (Budget: roughly $4M and change, minimal marketing, theaters take 50%… you do the math.)

More surprising than the fact it worked is why it worked.

When I spoke with him Monday, there were no victory laps or “we beat Hollywood” energy. Plenty of glee, no chest-thumping. He sounded like a filmmaker reverse-engineering what just happened.

“Basically, I’ve just been smiling looking at my phone,” he said. “This is the moment where I just get to enjoy it.”

Then something unexpected happened on Sunday. At a Markiplier-backed blood drive, a film student wearing one of his old merch shirts told him his path made her feel like a filmmaking career might be possible.

“She said, ‘There’s been such a huge inspiration because I want to be a filmmaker someday and it’s been kind of eye-opening that maybe I could still have a career in filmmaking.’ That really hit right in my heart… you never know how much it’s going to personally relate until you meet someone that it really affected.”

That’s what creators are really looking for right now — proof there’s life outside the studio machine.

“I do think that we did this first movie on hard mode,” he said. “‘Ah, one location, how hard could that be?’ Oh my God.”

Two months of pre-pro wasn’t enough. He says now he could’ve used five. What he did get right: trust the crew completely.

“The cinematographer Philip Roy was so up to the challenge, finding those tiny little nooks where he could fit a Periscope probe lens,” he said. “And then of course we had these beautiful lenses… Matt (the AC) really pushed to get these vintage lenses in there. A lot of what I’ve discovered is trusting the crew… the art department and the costume department, the makeup, and all the practical effects. I had this idea and then they just ran with it.”

His takeaway: Know their process so he knows what he’s asking for, and trust. “I can respect their time and their craft… so that they can give output that is magnified. It would not be nearly as enjoyable or a successful movie without that.”

Later, he added: “We can all win. It’s like, I look at the profit after this and all I can think of is, ‘I can’t wait to give the crew a bonus.’”

There’s something very non-auteur about how he talks. Have a vision, hire well, get out of the way. It’s less “director genius,” more startup logic.

Sam Herting told me the latest numbers were $18.2M domestic, $4.2M international — and that Markiplier “has a ton of traction with the 18–24 year old crowd… a pretty hard crowd to get to theaters these days and Mark got them in droves.”

That suggests reactivation, not cannibalization. He also paid attention to audiences who live outside key cities. “We also had a much higher percentage of rural population,” Markiplier said. “There’s just this untapped market that exists. They want movies, they want stories.”

In practice that means less competition and more enthusiasm. It’s very touring-band logic, and it worked.

He starred in the film — something he doesn’t regret but won’t repeat.

“I wanted to do the acting as a challenge, but I much more enjoy the directing and editing side of things and writing,” he said. And being the lead meant he could always grab pickups or ADR — and since he was also the editor, “that was also very freeing.”

Never again.

“It was too freeing,” he said “‘Oh, I can just loosey-goosey this. I got this to fall back on.’ That would make me extremely complacent as a filmmaker… I want to have a much more laser focused plan and restrictions on the post-production side.”

Counterintuitive, but sharp: fewer safety nets make better work.

This weekend has been a flurry of incoming calls, but any studio keen to take the next Markiplier title has its work cut out for them.

“There’s a world where you could have distribution companies… but I don’t need to hit any more success than this one did,” he said. “I don’t need a billion, I don’t need a hundred million. I think the scope of success is so distorted nowadays that it almost automatically feels like it excludes filmmakers from the process.”

Important caveats: With 38 million fans and a decade-plus runway, this model is no one’s idea of plug-and-play. He even said that in the three years it took him to make Iron Lung, he might have earned more by focusing on his other revenue streams.

“I have the financial backing to do this all on my own, but other YouTubers do not,” he said. “If we can create the scenario that more filmmakers can make things of the highest quality on the screen for less… you can still pay people well, but you have less crew, a more focused idea, and then boom, you can release it in 50 theaters, make a profit, have success, make another movie.”

He added: “I don’t think I want to use another distribution company unless I had a really good deal where it’s like I have complete freedom where they would not have any input and I’m doing all the marketing.”

That made me guffaw. “Yeah. You’re laughing like that’s never going to happen, but I can do that myself, so I should. I trust myself and I think the other people in my crew in my life trust me. I’ve bet on myself for 13 years and — this is so weird to say — I’ve never lost. Even when I haven’t made money, I’ve never lost from betting on myself and betting on my fans. Anyway, I’ve learned from doing that process, so I’m just going to keep doing that.”

Markiplier isn’t operating from film logic, indie or blockbuster. He’s thinking like a small business around cash flow, sustainability, and iteration.

The industry would call that “modest.” Founders call it “healthy.”

To me, that’s the difference that will define this new film economy. Where studios optimize for upside, creators optimize for control.

It’s not revolutionary, but it’s practical. And that might be the most disruptive thing of all. Because if this works for him, there could be a path for mid-tier creators, niche fandoms, and regional audiences

“Iron Lung” may be a moonshot we won’t see again, but not every film needs 4,000 screens. Some just need to open profitably — and Markiplier may have just stress-tested that system.