Mark Fischbach, known to his 38.2 million YouTube subscribers as ​‘Markiplier’, has had a very good weekend. His fiction feature directorial debut, tense and cerebral sci-fi horror Iron Lung, released on Friday 30th January. Self-released into over 4,000 theatres worldwide thanks to fan demand, the film has already made $21.7 million at the global box office, keeping pace with Sam Raimi’s Send Help* *and raking in seven times its own budget.

“It’s been nuts,” says Fischbach over Zoom. ​“It was a nail-biter looking at the numbers coming in.” Markiplier, best known for his gaming videos, has one of the biggest YouTube audiences on the planet, but rather than release the film onto the platform where he made his name, he ambitiously gunned for a theatrical release. ​“It’s because there’s a theoretical tier there,” he says. ​“There’s a gated wall, but I got bolt cutters – I snip my way through and, hey, I’m here now! I think there’s value in other people seeing that that’s possible. I didn’t really care about making money on it.”

*Iron Lung *is based on an unassuming indie video game of the same name, crafted by solo developer David Szymanski. A short first-person horror experience set in a single-roomed, lo-fi submarine under threat, Markiplier first streamed the game on its release in 2022, and found himself coming back for more. ​“I’ve played a lot of horror games in my time, and that one was different. I just couldn’t shake it,” reflects Fischbach. ​“I think it’s because of the limited perspective. You only have your weird little lights flashing. You know there’s something out there – not just monsters, but the world. I know there’s more – and it’s horrible, but I still want to know. It’s like a car crash, sometimes you can’t help but look.”

Fischbach had dipped his toes in filmmaking on YouTube, crafting a couple of feature-length ​‘choose your own adventure’ videos. ​“I had hit the limit of what playing videogames on YouTube could do,” he explains. ​“There were things that I could explore and ways that I could shift it up – but I didn’t feel challenged. So I made sketch comedies. I made a short. And then – okay, I’m ready for a feature.” *Iron Lung *was a different beast. ​“We did this on hard mode,” says Fischbach. ​“Single location: one sub. Everyone on the crew’s skill was laser focused down into this one idea: of making this interesting for the entire story. You should see the amount of stages that we had, to not only evolve the submarine, but the clothing and makeup. Every part of it had a very procedural, distinct and specific way it evolved”.

Markiplier is far from the only YouTuber to see success lately in theatrical cinema – Talk to Me* filmmakers the Philippou Brothers and Skinamarink *visionary Kyle Edward Ball spring to mind. ​“It’s novel until it’s not – and then it’s expected,” offers Fischbach. ​“That’s why I wanted to do theatrical, because I want to normalise the idea of a YouTuber trying to make something else. The scales are way too tipped towards big studios, so I want to bring it back a little bit. Iron Lung is more successful than I ever thought it would be, but it doesn’t even have to do that – it could make a more modest sum. I have advantages that no one else has, and I recognise that fully. I would love it if people found bigger success than me. I would love that more than anything.”

Fischbach stresses *Iron Lung *as a serious project. As one might expect for something spearheaded by a popular YouTuber, audiences have treated the film in the run-up to release as something of a meme, while many film publications have dismissed it as a curiosity. But for Markiplier, there’s a more important dialogue. ​“When a filmmaker makes a movie, they go on the interview circuit. And I’ve been doing that,” says Fischbach. ​“But after I’m done with that, I go on YouTube and I hit stream. I get to have that instantaneous relationship with my audience and tell them the truth of what I’m seeing. There’s no waiting for an article to be written. There’s value in these publications, but there is this novel nature of having that instant ability to talk to my fans real quick. And having that personal relationship makes everything move faster.”

Markiplier’s star streamer status is undeniable, and translates fascinatingly to the big screen, where Fischbach is, for the most part, the only performer present. ​“I wanted them to see the character, but I knew that was going to be difficult,” he explains. ​“Which is why I filmed a lot from behind. In side profile, I’ve got hair in front of me. I want people to forget about who this is. I don’t want people to see *me *– and it was a lot of people’s worries. I want people to have this almost blank slate. As a game, *you *step into the shoes of the player.”

The film’s approach to authorship equally fascinates. Developer Szymanski leads the credits, with Fischbach placing himself last. ​“I wanted to align [the film] with his vision, and I wanted people to know the name of the developer. I don’t need my name first. People know!” laughs Fischbach. ​“If I could not put my name on it at all, I would, but my manager would kill me. I want David’s work to be foremost, and I hope that game sales are doing really well right now. And likewise, Andrew’s music and sound mix guy Brad – this movie lives in its sound. I want people to lean in – that’s the feeling that I was trying to capture about the game. You want to put your ear to the hole and be like, what the fuck is out there? You want to squint at the pictures and be like, what am I looking at? I want people to lean in. It’s about focus and concentration and limited perspective.”

These qualities are shared by a number of indie horror games making the jump to the big screen this year – Genki Kawamura’s *Exit 8 *and soon-to-premiere Jiro Nagae’s The Convenience Store – which translate well thanks to their source material’s short length. Markiplier popularised both games on YouTube. ​“The writer for Convenience Store is working on the movie,” he tells us. ​“It’s so cool, because I think it’s a pipeline. That game is low-res. There’s no voice acting, it’s mostly sounds and text. Maybe filmmakers could reduce their idea down to a different medium – even just an audio podcast – and then use that to cultivate an audience and get it on screen. I think [Iron Lung] shows that it works.”

Yet in the wake of the film’s titanic success, Fischbach isn’t dreaming of a multi-hyphenate ascent. ​“I’m just Markiplier,” he says. ​“I don’t need any other names or titles. If I have to do a role, I’ll do a role. I tried to move a light once, and I got yelled at by a producer. I’m not saying this for applause, I know that union rules are union rules. But I helped as much as I could get away with. We’re all trying to make the same thing here.”