Inspiration for Indie Filmmakers

February 02, 2026

In partnership with

Here’s some serious inspiration for any independent (or any genre) filmmaker.

Maybe you know of Mark Fischbach.

He’s better known to 38 million YouTube subscribers as Markiplier.

Well, he recently opened his indie horror film Iron Lung in 4,100+ theaters worldwide.

Presales alone? $7 million.

No distributor.

No paid marketing campaign.

The secret?

Just a decade of showing up consistently. That helped him greate a massive audience of fans who literally called theaters until they booked the movie.

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Fischbach self-financed Iron Lung as a SAG low-budget production for under $2M, adapting it from a video game. He turned down distributor offers and bet on himself, a bet he appears to have already won before opening day.

The real secret here wasn’t virality. It was relationship.

Instead of parachuting in at release time, Fischbach spent years bringing fans into the process, sharing the messy parts, the long nights, the uncertainty.

When his distributor suggested starting with just three theaters, he posted the trailer and asked fans to request local screenings. The calls came in so fast one theater chain asked him to “turn off the bots.”

They weren’t bots.

Now projections have Iron Lung tracking for a $10–15M opening weekend, putting it in the same conversation as studio releases from filmmakers like Sam Raimi and action vehicles led by Jason Statham.

The lesson?

Build your audience. Treat them well. Serve up the goods… and you can write your own ticket.

It’s not easy. It takes time and patience.

But in the immortal words of legendary fitness guru Tony Little: “You can do it!”

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