Iron Lung undersells itself
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
Watching the trailer of Markiplier's Iron Lung movie made a certain type of impression on me. The movie is obviously low budget. The set looks hilarious ( outside of the context or the source material ). And shot choices look rather amateurish. Watching Iron Lung itself, on the other hand, makes me believe that Mark Fischbach ( Markiplier ), the writer and director of this movie, had a cinematic Ace up his sleeve. And he was just playing the long game. ↩ Reply
Iron Lung was made with 3 million dollars of Mark's own money. Yet, surprisingly, it made 51 million in the box office. It is 17X return on investment. How? ↩ Reply
Well obviously it must be because of Markiplier's immense presence on YouTube. As of now, Mark has 39 million people officially "subscribed" to his channel ( not counting, of course, those who use RSS, and or FreeTube, or various other means of watching YouTube without actually ever loading the malware, which is YouTube.com ). If all those millions of people go to the cinema, it results in some good box-office. ↩ Reply
Yet I have a problem with this theory. His videos on average are only watched by about half a million people. Nowhere near the amount of people that are subscribed. A large portion of those "subscribers" could be old, or deactivated accounts. People that bought a new phone and forgot their old passwords. Not all those 39 million result in actual engagement. ↩ Reply
So let's do the math. If on average a Markiplier video makes about 500,000 views, and we assume that all 100% of those who watch Mark on YouTube ( mind-you without paying for anything ) went to see Iron Lung in cinema, and on average a cinema ticket in the USA is about $10 each, Mark should have made $5 million in return. Enough to justify the $3 million budget. But nowhere near the actual number of $51 million. ↩ Reply
So... what is happening? ↩ Reply
How about another theory? What if the movie is actually great? ↩ Reply
So I watched it! c:0 ↩ Reply
My first impressions, with the opening, were already slightly better, than what I would have expected, given the trailer. The film is immediately tense. There is a sense of this horror-ish dread, present from the first second. The camera moves down, in an artsy shot, into the set of the film. A ship-of sorts. A type of submersible, with large numerical dials and strangely neon-powered analogue UI elements all around. ↩ Reply
Markiplier himself sitting in the center of it. ↩ Reply
Let me get this straight. Markiplier is a much better director than actor. By the end of the movie, his acting improves. I might even say, everything you might have a problem with in the beginning of the film, improves towards the end. But while I might dig the shot choices and editing decisions from the very beginning, even if some of them feel a bit wrong, I don't quite feel like Mark himself was up for the task, of actually acting the part. I strongly believe that if he directed a different actor instead, it would have resulted in a better performance. c:1 ↩ Reply
His performance is not bad bad, though. He isn't Tommy Wiseau. He is kind of okay most of the time. Sometimes ( especially towards the end ) he is great. But he looks like he has too much excitement in him, for whatever his situation is. Like he is acting, instead of living the part. It looks like Mark is more of a Performance with the capital "P" kind of guy. He tries to be naturalistic, but his instinct makes him slightly over-act, most of the time. c:2 ↩ Reply
Towards the end though, as he got more used to the fact that he is making a movie, as he got more tired from the production, this "acting" slowly went away, and its stead there appeared a much more refined, much more naturalistic Mark. Maybe, if Mark wants to act naturalisticly, he needs to sleep less, the day before? ↩ Reply
But directing, on the other side, is surprisingly very fucking good actually. There are shots in the very beginning of the film, where my brain went "amateur!". Like the camera sits in a certain position, framed a certain way, cut to in a certain way, that reminds me the aesthetic of some of those student films. The flow is not quite there. The shot seems to be there just for the sake of being there. It all feels like a series of images, rather than a whole. ↩ Reply
Also the set. It is hilarious. It tries to look like the UI from the game. A low-poly game, where everything is slightly exaggerated for read-ability. ↩ Reply
So here is what it does to you. You see the stupid set. You see the slightly overacting Mark. You see the feeling of it all being a bit amateurish. And you say to yourself: "Okay, I suppose this is what are watching now." ↩ Reply
People go to the cinema. They do it because they like Markiplier. They are prepared to sit through some jank. And they are getting just a tiny bit more than what they expect. ↩ Reply
But then the rest of the movie happens. ↩ Reply
One thing after another the movie unfolds in-front of you like a gorgeous nasty flower filled with alien blood. The feeling of tension from the first few seconds. No! We get fucking Lovecraftian horror! Bad acting? It flies out of the metal window and smashes into a sea of blood! Cinematography? Directing? Editing? Everything just slowly rises in quality. The set looks less and less stupid, while the ship, the main character is in, slowly deteriorates. The ending is so well done and yet in the same time so utterly fucked up that you, as an audience member, have no choice, but to drag all your friends to see it too. ↩ Reply
I believe all those little shitty decisions in the beginning of the film were actually calculated and deliberate. I think Markiplier had a fucking cinematic Ace up his sleeve, and he knew he couldn't just use it right away. ↩ Reply
Fucking genius! ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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Troler
c:1 July 05, 2026 I strongly believe that if he directed a different actor instead, it would have resulted in a better performance.
⤴ ViewBut Box Office returns would not be as great, people came to see a Markiplier, not a Mark me outlier.
Troler
c:2 July 05, 2026 He tries to be naturalistic, but his instinct makes him slightly over-act, most of the time
⤴ ViewI suffer the same problem. I love Asian cinema and especially the over-acting. But you king of need the entire film to carry that energy to work.
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