Markiplier’s self-financed horror movie nearly beat Hollywood’s biggest directors at the box office. Iron Lung pulled in $18.2M this opening weekend across 3K theaters, more than six times its $3M budget. It came in just behind Sam Raimi’s star-studded Send Help and outperformed the release of Melania. The film is an adaptation of a 2022 indie video game the YouTuber originally played on his channel, where it became one of his most popular series. Markiplier wrote, directed, and starred in the film alongside fellow gaming creator Jacksepticeye. They had no major studio backing and no traditional marketing, just two leads with a combined 65M YouTube subscribers and an audience already invested in the IP. Markiplier ranks sixth among Gen Z’s favorite content creators, according to YPulse data, and this fanbase showed up in force. YouTube’s CEO called it “the new era of Hollywood,” and the box office receipts back him up. (NBC News)
👀 Read more from YPulse: Gen Z’s Top 10 Favorite Content Creators
