One of the biggest Hollywood stories of 2026 has been directors who cut their teeth on YouTube finding smash-hit success at the box office. Curry Barker’s Obsession and Kane Parsons‘ Backrooms have rightfully grabbed headlines for drawing audiences to their unique, low-budget horror tales. But the trend kicked off much earlier in the year, when Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach’s Iron Lung hit the number two spot on its opening weekend, finishing behind Sam Raimi’s Send Help but ahead of the Melania Trump documentary.
And even more impressive as far as Iron Lung is concerned, while Obsession and Backrooms had the backing of, respectively, Focus Features and A24, Markiplier’s adaptation of the 2022 video game by David Szymanski was self-financed and distributed by the writer-director-editor-star’s own Markiplier Studios. His YouTube fan base—he has nearly 39 million subscribers on the platform—surely played a role in his $50 million box-office success, and he’s now using his newfound clout even beyond the internet to help other creators get a leg up.
In a new interview with IndieWire, Markiplier talked about what he’s been up to since Iron Lung helped reshape the current movie landscape.
“I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of studios that have been both fruitful and not fruitful,” he said. “Honestly, it’s been good to have those conversations because it means that more people are curious about what creators can offer.”
He continued, “I like to be in that place because I want to help other creators to make their projects. I’m already getting that underway with a couple friends of mine. I’m able to kind of play matchmaker—like, I’ve talked to these studios; I think this might be a good fit for you to try to direct your first thing. And that’s been huge, huge to be able to do that. It feels great to kind of be in a position where I can affect change.”
Markiplier also said that overall, he’s been pleasantly surprised by his studio experiences. “It makes me realize in the Hollywood engine, there’s still a lot of good people that really want to make art, and that gives me hope,” he told IndieWire.
As for what’s next, the creator said that he “did too much myself” on Iron Lung, and he’d be willing to give up some control on his next feature, once he figures out what it might be. “I still think there are some ideas that are bigger than what I could tackle myself. Again, it’s that optimism of talking to these companies and being like, oh, there are people that are passionate and really do believe in the process.”
However, he’s well aware of how he got here. “You’ve got to do what’s best for you, but if you’re true to the [audience], they’ll be true to you and they will be there for you when you need them. It’s this currency of loyalty that is so hard to quantify … Creators all kind of intuitively know that.”
Iron Lung is now available to buy or rent on YouTube.
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