Cleo Brann and Sally-Ann Marshall consider the rise of independent cinema
Image: Cleo Brann
What do you go to the cinema to watch movies for? Is it the cast, the director, the studio, or the passion behind the projects? Hollywood would have you believe it is the stars and the hefty budgets. But is that really what the audience wants?
Hollywood is in uproar as the new release ‘Iron Lung’ exposes that you don’t need studio backing or massive budgets to obtain success and audience satisfaction. The YouTuber Markiplier, also known as Mark Fischbach, has defied all odds and independently directed, acted in, and distributed his movie. Despite only being shown in theatres for around 3 days, ‘Iron Lung’ has made over ten times its budget of 3 million dollars (34.2 million dollars worldwide).
‘Iron Lung’ is a sci-fi cosmic horror based on the game by David Syzmanski of the same name. It takes place in a single, small submarine, enveloped in a blood ocean, immediately giving the film a sense of claustrophobia and unease. This, along with the slow and steadily building tension and confusion, creates a very immersive experience and puts you in the headspace of the protagonist, Simon. It expands on the game’s lore in a very interesting and natural way without diminishing the original function and charm of the game. Overall, a near perfect video game adaptation.
However, many Hollywood productions that adapt games displease fans as they are directed by people who have not played the game and have no interest in doing so, creating unfaithful adaptations. Games such as ‘Borderlands’ and ‘Assassin’s Creed’ have been victim to these types of adaptations. Despite having many notable actors, such as Jack Black and Kevin Hart, the ‘Borderlands’ movie did amazingly badly, scoring 4.7/10 on IMBD and having a 10% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps this shows that just because a big name is attached to a production, it doesn’t mean it will perform well. Actors can become ‘overused’ by Hollywood as an easy way to market and sell their movies.
‘Iron Lung’ avoids all of the negative stereotypes associated with Hollywood adaptations. Overall, fans of the game, and of Markiplier, seem to be very pleased with the outcome of the movie, marking it as a success among general audiences. This can be confirmed by the ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ score of 87% from the audience. The film does not include many big-name actors, or many actors at all for that matter, since it revolves almost entirely around Fischbach’s character, ‘Simon’.
The success of ‘Iron Lung’ can be traced back to many different factors. As a self-funded indie project, Mark was able to have full creative control over the movie as a fan and player of the original game so he was able to adapt it to other fans’ tastes. Indie projects usually come with a strong sense of community and ‘Iron Lung’ is no exception. Both the original game and Markiplier have a very strong fan base. This sense of community also creates more trust between the audience and the creator. Markiplier’s fans’ loyalty and trust in him were a major factor in the film’s success. Fischbach asked his fans to call their local theatres and ask them to show ‘Iron Lung’ which worked amazingly well as it was originally only going to be shown in around 50 theatres but ended up in over 4000 theatres globally.
Talk to Me is another great example of what happens when a film is made out of genuine passion rather than to maximise profit. Directed by Michael and Danny Philippou (better known on Youtube as RackaRacka), the film carries the same creativity they’ve shown online since they were kids. Backed by the A24, an indie studio famous for letting filmmakers actually think outside of the box and unleash their full potential and creativity, Talk to Me feels unique, both off putting and enticing in a way most people haven’t seen in a movie for a while.
What makes its success even more impressive is the small budget. Although acquiring the script and the right to work on it cost 10 million dollars the production of the movie was only $4.5 million, it still managed to outperform films from the top five studios such as ‘Cocaine Bear’ and ‘Tarot’.
A lot of mainstream media feels engineered to tick boxes: recognisable actors, predictable scares or plot twists, safe storytelling. But audiences are getting tired of that. Mainstream studios like Disney pressure independent theatres to keep showing movies that don’t perform well causing these theatres to lose money because people don’t come to see the movie. This is actively contributing to the death of cinema.
The success of ‘Iron Lung’ and other indie productions like ‘Talk to Me’ builds hope for indie creators to succeed in the film industry without having to give in to exploitative studios. Even creators such as Dana Terrace, creator of ‘The Owl House’ is moving away from Disney to work with the indie studio, Glitch, to make ‘The Knights of Guinivere’. These films and shows stand out because they’re made by people who genuinely care about the craft, and that passion shows on screen.
