What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Markiplier Goes to Hollywood
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Markiplier has been entertaining millions of fans on YouTube for over a decade. But his new movie Iron Lung - which he self-financed, directed, wrote and acted in - was a smash at the box office, not on his YouTube channel. Is it proof that he’s more than a YouTuber? Or is it proof that Hollywood is thinking about the platform and its creators all wrong?
Guest: Mark Fischbach aka Markiplier, YouTuber, filmmaker and director of “Iron Lung.”
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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I see that question in your eyes. |
| 0:11.9 | For what purpose do we remain alone in the dark? |
| 0:18.8 | If you took a look at the Hollywood box office for the weekend of January 30th, you'd see |
| 0:23.5 | something a bit surprising. |
| 0:25.5 | Sure, Sam Ramey's thriller Send Help is there, as is Melania. |
| 0:31.0 | But right up there, above the pseudo-documentary about the First Lady, is a little movie |
| 0:36.9 | called Iron Lung. It's based on a horror |
| 0:40.5 | video game where you pilot a submarine through an ocean of blood. And depending on how you count, |
| 0:47.9 | it was either the number one or number two movie in America, a self-finance movie without a big studio behind it made by one guy. |
| 0:57.6 | His real name is Mark Fishpock, but he is better known by his YouTube name, Markiplier. |
| 1:07.3 | Mark has been making content for YouTube for over a decade. |
| 1:11.2 | He was one of the early pioneers of let's play videos, |
| 1:15.0 | where he plays video games and comments on them for his fans. |
| 1:18.6 | In his time on YouTube, he's made a ton of different things. |
| 1:22.5 | In 2022, he was nominated for an Emmy for In Space with Markiplier, |
| 1:27.2 | a Choose Your Own Adventure |
| 1:28.2 | Style video posted to his channel. In 2024, he starred in The Edge of Sleep, a mini-series |
| 1:34.6 | on Amazon Prime. But despite those successes and his millions of subscribers, when Mark wanted |
| 1:41.8 | to make Iron Lung, Hollywood still saw a YouTuber. |
| 1:46.3 | Today on the show, talking with Markiplier about his breakout success and whether the movie industry needs to take YouTube seriously. |
| 1:55.3 | I'm Lizzie O'Leary, and you're listening to a special midweek edition of What Next TBD, a show about technology, power, and how the future will be determined. Stick around. |
| 2:18.2 | Hi, I'm Mark, why don't you introduce yourself? |
... |
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