Markiplier on What Iron Lung Means for the Future of Creator-Led Filmmaking

Iron Lung is a moody, claustrophobic sci-fi horror film written, directed by, and starring Mark Fischbach (aka Markiplier) in the lead role of Simon, based on David Szymanski’s 2022 indie game of the same name. Set in future where humanity is trapped in a dying universe following the Quiet Rapture, the story follows a lone convict forced to explore an alien ocean of blood from inside a rusted submarine — blind, isolated, and constantly on the brink of danger. Made without traditional studio backing or distribution, Iron Lung is a bold leap from YouTube creator to independent filmmaker, proving that successful films can thrive outside the Hollywood system.

Markiplier discusses his career catapult from YouTuber to filmmaker with Creative Screenwriting Magazine.

Building a YouTube Community

Markiplier started his YouTube channel in 2012, which to date, has amassed over 38 million followers – almost as many residents as the state of California.

I started back in March 2012 because my brother said people liked watching people play video games and making videos of that. So I started there.

I also had other reasons for it. Bad job. I got laid off. I was in college. I had a tumor and I needed to change my life. But getting the process going was a really arduous journey. That took a long time.

Markiplier (Mark Fischbach)

But, in the moment, when my first video went somewhat viral, I got third place on the video subreddit. That got me 100 or 200 subscribers. I was floored. I remember my phone started blowing up.

I was like, “Oh, my God. I have a huge following – unbelievably enormous. I tried to imagine 150 people in a room. I don’t even know 150 people.”  I took that very seriously. So when I got to 10,000 followers, I realized that some stadia don’t even fit that many people.

I made videos on the milestones of 10,000, 20, 30 thousand people. When it got to 100,000, I was so blown away. This took years. I think I got my first million subscribers about two years ago, twelve years after I started.

Hitting a million subscribers, it started to be unreasonable. This is too many people. I made a pretty famous, very memable video with over 8 million views where I’m responding to a fan video where they’re just making really touching things. And I’m crying. I was devastated because I realized I will never have a relationship with any of these people. I will never be able to know this many people.

No human could know 8 million people. It’s impossible. When I look back on 150 people, I thought how large that number was, I realize that number is still large.

But 8 million is so large that it’s impossible to wrap your head around it. I made a promise to myself that no matter how big it gets, I need to remember the real people behind this number.

And 150 is just as important as the 8 million.

Becoming Markiplier – YouTube Sensation 

Why would people want to see it? Uh, I don’t really know.

I’ve posted a lot of different types of things. I think there’s a bevy of content for people to come in and find. I have a lot of starting points for people.

It’s funny because my most popular videos are these random nonsense videos. There’s a series of three that have hundreds of millions of views that have nothing to do with the rest of my channel.

I think people stay because I’ve tried very hard to make sure that my channel is a representation of my journey as a creator and me as a person, as opposed to me as this big YouTuber.

I try to make sure that’s always part of it. And that often leads me to talking about my bigger projects and building something else. This Iron Lung movie is a sequence of various projects that I’ve started since I started the channel and making sketch comedies within the first few weeks.

So people have seen that trajectory and I think they stick around because they wonder what I’m going to do next and see if I can actually do the things that I’m talking about. Whether that’s people that really cheer me on or people hoping that I fail or wondering when I’m going to falter.

But I think at the very least, the thing that I provide is I surprise them with whatever the next thing is. I keep them guessing where I’m going to go.

From Horror Video Games to Filmmaker

I played the Iron Lung game in 2022 and I really liked it. It was very different from the other horror video games. I played a lot of horror games of various different types and I couldn’t really categorize this one.

It was something that put so many restrictions on players that other horror video games might not. The concept is so out there in terms of this apocalypse that people don’t understand, you’re in a blood-filled moon in a leaky sub. It takes itself super seriously, but doesn’t give you the answers you’re looking for.

You really have to dig, you have to put your ear to the wall to hear something, you have to make guesses. There’s a lot of inferred information. It was scary and entertaining too.

But universally, it was very highly rated, around 90%. When I saw that, I reached out to the developer David Szymanski and I asked if he’d like to have a movie made of this. He was an individual game developer and agreed.

So working with him, I got to pick his brain about the questions that I wanted answered while I was building out the rest of the story for the movie. It was a unique experience because it was so contained.

There were enough things in the game that left things unanswered and I didn’t feel I had to answer all of them. I wanted to be faithful to the game while also allowing me to build to the universe for the movie. I worked with David to figure out where that story was going to flourish. It had a lot of things going for it because I was able to work with one person instead of making this with a team or a company.

I was able to loop David in on the creative decisions and keep his opinions integrated into how the story was going to unfold. And then, I just then started making it and assembled the team really quickly.

Making Good Trouble @ Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios

The pre-production went all the ways that I usually go the other projects. Meet with the team, find the key roles. It was also a union shoot. We did it both SAG and IATSE because I wanted to do it as officially as possible because this was going to be my first feature even though I’ve done bigger productions than this before. It wasn’t an ego thing. I also want people to feel comfortable and feel like I could be trusted.

There were some things of the process I had to learn along the way. But other than that, it went smoothly. We could have used a little more pre-production, but the location we were filming at, Troublemaker Studios in Austin, had a deadline when they needed the space.

Troublemaker is a nice space, but we were in the non-air-conditioned, climate-controlled soundstage, which was fine because we could drill our whole thing into the ground. Everyone built their whole department zones and offices on the soundstage.

You can see some of the behind the scenes footage some of the crew posted about where they’re doing the makeup, working on the costumes, and working on the props. The set was the central feature of the whole space on this big motion control rig so it could be thrown around and look realistic.

It was a 35-day shoot. It was originally going to be a 25, and then I talked to Robert Rodriguez. I was trying to charm some extra days because they had that deadline. Thankfully, his kids knew me. And usually, if someone’s kids know me, then I’m okay.

He was really cool. The post-production side of it took the longest. That’s because I was working on a lot of it myself. I had only weekends to work on it. I had the YouTube channel and then I had this podcast deal lined up.

I was making three to four podcast episodes a week, in addition to my YouTube videos. Then I had this clothing company that I was working on. There were a lot of things that took away my weekdays, so I was only able to crack the project open on weekends. And then, with ADHD, it’s very hard for me to work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or most of the time, Saturday, Sunday, and then wait a week, do a whole bunch of other things, then come back and do it and continue that chain of thoughts.

It was very difficult. And so that’s why it took a lot longer, in addition to the talking and trying to figure out distribution and things like that.

Ava (Caroline Kaplan)

No Studio Distribution. No Problem

I already put out a few trailers before release. They’ve been watched over 10 million times. People knew about the Iron Lung project for three years on my YouTube channel.

I didn’t set out to send a message to the film business. It was all consequential. I had no idea that it was going to reach this level. I made jokes about it when it was happening.

I think that all I’ve been trying to do my entire second half of my career when I was making bigger projects is, “There’s a whole world of talented creators out there on YouTube, and the wide world of video production and movies and TV should give them a chance. There’s so much content and the landscape is transforming.”

So it’s never been a middle finger to the industry. It’s been, “You need to adapt.”

You need to take advantage of these creators who look at this from a different lens. I want to help the businesses that have made movies that I cherish very deeply. I think that the movie industry could be a lot healthier if they take a different approach to it. That change is very hard.

So, the only thing I want people to take away from this is, “I have a lot of subscribers, but this isn’t a recipe that a lot of people could follow.”  But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of other creators out there with, less, but still substantial following. That’s a huge foothold to start from.

There’s value there. If you’re a business, there’s value. If you’re a consumer, if you watch this kind of stuff, there are incredible ideas that are just lurking beneath the surface waiting to be discovered and have their chance.

The more you can open that, the more people go through that, the wider it gets, and the more people can see the end of it and get some success out of it.

Audiences, Followers, or Fans?

Audiences. I use it sometimes. Audiences is more like people in a space. I often think of that very physically. Followers ties into influencers.

I don’t typically look at any kind of metric. I famously don’t look at analytics. I don’t make plans based on them.

When you say followers, as opposed to fans, it detracts from the fact that they are people who’ve given you their time. And that is an extremely valuable thing. Hardly any of us would ever say that we have too much time. So, I always want to respect that, even if I can’t do it personally.

I think fans is a term I would use more than followers because they are supportive and they want it to succeed and  help if they can. And that’s the best part of it. If they want to help and you give them an avenue to help, it feels good for everybody.

Markiplier: Innovator or Disruptor?

I think the term that jumped to mind is a nuisance. (A pain in the lung).

I think that I just really annoy a lot of these companies more than anything because I’ll burst through a door being  Markiplier, here’s my movie. And then I walk out, don’t even talk to them afterwards.

Bam, here’s Iron Lung. And I’m like, “All right, thumbs up. I’m going to work on the next thing.”

I’m ignoring some calls from studios asking, “Do you need help distributing that?” And I’m like, “Sorry, I’m off to somewhere else.”

I don’t like the term disruptor. That feels too startup culturey. I’m just a YouTube man. I make YouTube videos.

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.