My latest article is up at The Everyman, going into how the success of Iron Lung might have major – and positive – consequences for the film industry:

We may have just witnessed the dawn of a revolution in the world of filmmaking.

A couple weekend’s ago, a low-budget independent horror film based on low-budget independent video game called Iron Lung was released. In its first couple days, it beat out the Disney produced, Sam Raimi directed mainstream film Send Help to become the number one movie in America, and subsequently had its run extended due to strong box-office performance and word-of-mouth. As of this writing, it’s sitting at a comfortable number three at the box office.

But Iron Lung wasn’t just an ‘indie’ film in the usual sense. Most indie films these days are made by industry insiders, and at any rate, they typically must be picked up by an established studio for distribution. In the case of Iron Lung, it was entirely produced, directed, funded, and (most importantly) distributed outside the Hollywood system.

This is potentially a major step in the downfall of the tottering Hollywood empire.

Iron Lung is a passion project by gaming YouTuber Mark Fischbach, AKA Markiplier. Markiplier’s niche is playing and reacting to video games, especially horror games. I don’t follow him myself, but I’m distantly familiar with his work, which is driven by his entertaining personality and over-the-top reactions. He also has a very positive reputation as a genuinely sincere person who deals honestly his fans (unlike a certain other YouTuber who also recently had a feature film release).

He is, in any case, successful enough to have the resources to make his own adaptation of the game Iron Lung, which casts the player as the pilot of a submersible in a blood ocean on a distant moon who is trying to find clues to an apocalyptic cosmic event. He paid for the film with his own money, wrote it in collaboration with the original game developer, directed it, and also starred in it. He then shepherded it through the multiyear process of post-production and distribution, and now it is competing at the international box office.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I haven’t seen the film myself and can’t speak to its quality (word of mouth seems to be that it’s heavily flawed and certainly not for everyone, but overall a solid low-budget horror film). But Markiplier’s achievement goes beyond the merits of the film itself or his performance in it.

Read the rest here