Draug

For those who are unfamiliar, Sam Raimi Created the Evil Dead trilogy, directed the Toby McGuire Spider-Man films, and remains a noted figure in the long line of Marvel Universe writer-directors. Whether you like him or not, he's an Action-Horror Juggernaut that's established his place in film canon over the last 40 years. Distributors pick him up on name alone. Send Help is his 16th film, so to say he's a veteran of film distribution is no overstatement. Despite the ad blockers I run on my phone and tablet, I've personally seen so many ads for Send Help over the last six weeks that I'm tired of Rachel McAdams' face. Raimi can afford that kind of marketing saturation; he spent 40 million making this film. It opened yesterday in 3,475 theaters, which is on par with a typical "big budget" release spread.

On the other hand, Mark Fischbach is, well, Markiplier. Despite his long youtube career, in the larger film world he's an incredibly niche, small potatoes filmmaker. Anyone who's followed the plight of Qcode's podcast-to-miniseries adaptation, The Edge of Sleep, knows that Mark's incredibly focused and tenacious when it comes to polishing and distributing his work. He fought tooth and nail to get TEoS out of development hell, arguing with streaming services of all stripes, and eventually facing blatant sabotage by Amazon Prime, despite already being Emmy nominated for his previous webseries.

In the wake of all that static from the TV industry, Mark knew he had to get Iron Lung to an audience with no studio backing whatsoever. He and his wife Amy contacted 60 individual theaters, asking for distribution. There's been no ad space on websites, outside of the domains belonging to theaters showing the film. There have been no billboards, no promotional tours, no studio money. But that's where 38 million Markiplier fans have taken over.

Mark's viewers and longtime fans called and emailed their local theaters directly, en masse, because they wanted this movie. The three largest movie theater chains in America sat up and took notice, and international theater chains soon followed. Now, as I write this, Iron Lung is showing in 4161 theaters internationally. That's almost 700 more theaters than Send Help. It's made a 17% profit in 24 hours. For Send Help to make that kind of box office return on investment, it would have had to make 46.8 million yesterday alone - the same amount of money that Sinners made over its 3-day opening weekend.

I don't care if you like Markiplier's body of work or not. I've heard people call this film a "Vanity Project," or an "Ego Trip." I've seen several reviews for the film that are less than glowing. Frankly, I don't give a shit. The debut of this film, on this scale, is a massive achievement. It's an eldritch chamber-horror sci fi bottle film. The last time I encountered a film built like this (one set, carried by one actor, produced on a shoestring budget), it was the Willem Dafoe film Inside (2023). That film grossed less than a million dollars worldwide through its entire run.

Think about that. Markiplier outgrossed a fucking Willem Dafoe Movie. Three times over. In 24 hours.

Forbes, Variety, and so on are like "Huh. This Mark Of Pliers guy made a video game movie that's running with the big boys. Weird." Not one of them has thought to give Mark his flowers for the truly unprecedented nature of this debut. Tiny production. Overwhelming pushback. The beginnings of an unexpected triumph.

It's almost like the film industry built this unfairly maligned artist a coffin, threw it into the ocean of hollywood, waited for him to drown, and got their shit rocked.