Markiplier, the famous YouTube content creator, has surprised the film industry by adapting the indie horror game Iron Lung into a movie that has already grossed 21.7 million dollars globally. Recently released, the film managed to earn 12.5 million dollars during its opening days at the box office, significantly surpassing its estimated budget of 3 million dollars. Iron Lung is dominating the box office. The game’s creator, David Szymanski, expressed his astonishment at the film’s success, commenting on social media: “What the fuck.” This comment came after realizing that […]
Markiplier, the famous YouTube content creator, has surprised the film industry by adapting the indie horror game Iron Lung into a movie that has already grossed 21.7 million dollars globally. Recently released, the film managed to earn 12.5 million dollars during its first days at the box office, significantly surpassing its estimated budget of 3 million dollars.
Iron Lung is dominating the box office
The creator of the game, David Szymanski, expressed his astonishment at the success of the movie, commenting on social media: “What the fuck”. This comment arose after realizing that some graphics did not show the film’s earnings, to which he responded with a Starship Troopers meme that said “It’s afraid”. The movie was written, co-produced, directed, and starred by Markiplier, and is based on a game that, lasting approximately an hour, revolves around the experience of piloting a windowless submarine in a blood ocean of an alien planet.
The adaptation has been seen as a promising example for movies based on video games, especially those that do not rely on large production studios or famous faces in their cast. This fact could open doors to new adaptations, offering an alternative to more conventional proposals, such as those that have presented iconic titles like Mario or Sonic.
Despite the success of Iron Lung on the big screen, questions arise about whether the experience of watching the movie is really superior to playing the game on YouTube. According to PC Gamer’s senior editor, Christopher Livingston, the debate continues, but the truth is that this development is positive for the video game industry, regardless of the quality of the movie.
At the same time that the OceanGate tragedy happens, a submarine game that seems to predict the whole situation has increased its sales to the beast.
For days the main topic of conversation has been OceanGate. With good reason. Lost in the middle of the ocean looking for a live view of the Titanic, this pseudo-submarine carrying five billionaires who had paid a quarter of a million per head for the trip, at this point there is no chance that they will be rescued alive. Even with French, American and Canadian authorities conducting a search operation unheard of to this day, the chances of finding them in time are slim. The ocean is infinite, unpredictable and does not care about human life.
That is precisely what Iron Lung is about. A game developed by David Szymanski that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity has exhausted all the Earth’s resources and has to explore other planets in search of them to try to survive. Our main character is a prisoner condemned to death who is given a chance to exonerate himself. They will give him freedom if he agrees to pilot a tiny submarine without windows, closed from the outside, in an ocean of blood of a distant planet where they suspect that there may be resources that may allow humanity to continue to exist some more time Our protagonist accepts and there begins our journey: in a tiny submarine, only with the information of a radar and an archaic map, and at the mercy of the elements. A very similar situation in which the OceanGate crew members have voluntarily put themselves.
That’s why it should come as no surprise that since this tragedy happened, sales of the game have increased. Exponentially. According to a graph shown by David Szymanski himself in his tweet, Iron Lung sales have suffered a very high peak from the second half of the 19th, coinciding with the news of what happened with the OceanGate.
In any case, this is something that the developer himself has described as terrifying. In his own words, he made Iron Lung thinking about “the most nightmarish thing I could imagine, and to know that there are real people in that situation at this very moment is absolutely terrifying”. And while he confesses that he thinks some of the jokes that have been made about the situation are funny and that it was all a consequence of his bad decisions, no one deserves to suffer a death as absolutely horrifying as the one his game poses.
Moreover, this is not the only recent occasion in which Iron Lung has made the news. Although, let’s face it, on other occasions it has been for much happier reasons. The game has also received quite a bit of recent attention thanks to the fact that youtuber Mark Fischbach, better known as Markiplier, is set to make his feature film debut making a movie adaptation of the video game. With assistance from David Szymanski in all aspects of production, Markiplier will be directing, scripting, producing and playing the lead role in this quirky adaptation.
Iron Lung is a game that was released on March 10, 2022 and lasts about an hour and a half. Priced at €5, it is likely that many people may use the game as a way to manage their thalassophobia, or sea anxiety, which may have produced this whole situation in many people. Especially since, even with its relatively simple and primitive appearance, Iron Lung may be among the most terrifying games of recent years. In any case, while the situation is being resolved, the one thing that is clear is that Iron Lung is the game of the moment. Even if it is, to some extent, despite Szymanski’s own self-interest.
