The Significance of Iron Lung in Hollywood
Iron Lung was released on January 30th and became the 2nd-highest-grossing film at the domestic box office during its opening weekend, raking in $18,190,786. Iron Lung represents a significant milestone in both the online influence space and movie production at large, being one of the first movies to be this widely successful while also being fully funded, written, directed, and starred in by one man, Mark Fischback. Mark is better known as the YouTuber Markiplier. He is a popular influencer on social media platforms, primarily YouTube, where he began and has amassed a following of 38.3 million subscribers. What truly makes this a significant milestone is Markiplier’s ability to break into the movie-making space without the backing of major studios, which have long dominated it. However, what this means for the future of movies and how it might influence them is rather interesting to consider, as Hollywood and filmmakers alike will no doubt take notice of this development.
(Iron Lung Official Posters)
Iron Lung and Other Video Game Movies:
Iron Lung represents another trend in the movie industry that has recently gained traction: game adaptations into film. The movie Iron Lung is based on a video game of the same name that Markiplier previously played on his YouTube channel. Similarly, Hollywood has for years been attempting to recreate video games into movies to varying degrees of success, but has notably begun to find more success in the modern age. Movies like The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023 (which is now even getting a sequel), The Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy, the Mortal Kombat movie, the FNAF Movies, A Minecraft Movie last year, and the recently announced Street Fighter movie coming out this October, all of these and many more highlight this growing push towards capturing the audience of video game playing moviegoers. Many of these video game movies have been, while maybe not highly praised by critics, successful at the Box Office and with their fans. All of these films, however, have two important distinctions compared to Iron Lung’s release: they are all backed by major studios and are based on already existing, already popular video game series with built-in fanbases. The importance of this distinction is that it showcases the significance of Iron Lung’s success, because while there was likely fans of the Iron Lung videogame, there wasn’t a guarantee of a large fanbase to fall back on as viewers of the movie, meaning that the success of the film hinged on the quality of it and the ability of Markiplier to market the movie to his fanbase.
The Importance of Online Marketing:
Iron Lung (the game) was initially released on Steam, followed by console releases on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5, and received mostly positive reviews, with an estimated gross revenue of $1.3 million. With these statistics, one could be convinced that Iron Lung already had that guaranteed fanbase that would ensure its success in the Box Office, but again, compared to other video game adaptations, Iron Lung was an Indie Game (Which means a game that lacked a major gaming studio behind the production of it), solely developed and published by gaming developer David Szymanski. Video games like Mario, Sonic, FNAF, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Minecraft have been widely popular and successful for years, with multiple entries, already part of Pop Culture, and relatively well known. This meant that, for the release of the Iron Lung film, marketing would be key to its success, and Markiplier took full advantage of his existing viewer base to promote the movie. Markiplier posted several videos and posts online about the release of Iron Lung, explaining where his fans could get tickets to see it and outlining the production process, helping generate word-of-mouth buzz. Markiplier’s marketing wasn’t flashy, but it showcased his dedication and genuine passion for the project, getting fans excited about the prospect by sharing his own excitement about the film. Without Markiplier’s marketing of Iron Lung, it would be unlikely that the film would have received the same traction at the Box Office and online, since it lacked the normal selling points of films nowadays– that being big-name actors or already well-established franchise I.P.s– in order to garner attention on its release. Yet despite relying only on his pre-existing audience and word of mouth, the film became the 2nd-highest domestically at the Box Office and earned $39 million on a $3 million budget, beaten only by Send Help. For every dollar spent on the production of Iron Lung, the film earned thirteen back. This is a major development in film marketing and production, and Hollywood’s response to its success will be telling, depending on what lessons it learns from Iron Lung.
The Potential Response of Hollywood:
One of the appeals of Iron Lung is that it’s clearly a passion project by Markiplier, as he funded, directed, wrote, and starred in it as an indie film. However, Hollywood is much more likely to take a different view of Iron Lung’s success, and it might develop accordingly. Hollywood will probably see one big takeaway from this film: Youtubers. Youtubers and influencers in general have already been used to market or promote films, but seeing the success Markiplier achieved by encouraging his fans to see the film, it’s possible that Hollywood will make a greater push to seek out influencers for marketing. Hollywood might consider using influencers to market the film directly, or to feature it in the film itself, such as by starring in it or writing it. Regardless, it’s skeptical that Hollywood will also see the other factors revolving around Iron Lung’s success, such as the singular creative vision of one person unhampered and unaltered by studio heads, the reasonable film budget, or even the already established respect that Markiplier has obtained from his audience with previous smaller projects created on Youtube, that still retained high quality film-making techniques and writing. Either way, the future of Hollywood may see greater strides toward incorporating influencers to boost movie sales.
