YouTube sensation Mark Fischbach’s ‘Iron Lung’ shocks at box office with massive opening

While most analysts went blue in the face assessing if the $7 million “Melania” opening was good for a documentary (yes), bad for a movie with a $40 million budget and a $35 million marketing spend (also yes), or whether it was a worthwhile film at all (I’m not a critic — you decide), YouTube sensation Mark Fischbach quietly slid into the No. 2 spot at the domestic box office, giving the Disney-backed “Send Help” a bona fide run for its money.

“Iron Lung,” the self-funded directorial effort from Fischbach (best known to his 38 million subscribers as Markiplier), opened to over $17 million stateside, and has surpassed $26 million globally. Based on the 2022 video game of the same name, it stars Fischbach as a convict who must navigate a remote moon’s ocean of blood in a submarine. 

The film debuted to over 4,000 screens, far more than Fischbach’s original target of a few hundred. That’s because his fans started a grassroots campaign to uplift the project, calling their local theaters to request showings.

“Hollywood would be remiss to overlook this moment,” says Shawn Robbins, Fandango’s director of analytics and Box Office Theory founder and owner. “This is the clearest window yet into just how important video game fans and younger generations of digital consumers are, for not just the future but the present status quo of moviegoing.”

Looking ahead to the upcoming Super Bowl weekend, it will prove interesting to see if “Iron Lung” can hold strong for a second outing. Typically a sleepy time at the box office (most of us will be chowing down on buffalo chicken dip instead of buying popcorn at our local cineplex), coupled with low-key releases like “Dracula,” “Solo Mio” and “The Strangers – Part 3,” it’s likely we’ll see a re-tread of last weekend’s chart-toppers.

With just a reported $3 million production budget, “Iron Lung” has already more than recouped its spend, cementing Fischbach as a force to be reckoned with, regardless of how this weekend plays out. As Robbins puts it, “Everything from here on is a cherry on top.”