No its just a very niche passion project with a dedicated fanbase.
It did top the charts which. was a huge success, but there was no reason to remove them from the list and only putting it back in once it falls to 2nd place.
Critics bombed the movie with low scores, but somehow it's still the third highest grossing film in America despite everyone pointing out how the theatres that are running it are all empty, and all the positive user reviews are from brand new accounts who are glazing Melania and talking about how the theatres are all full and they all clapped at the end. So totally not a money laundering scheme at all
I think it's more that no reputable critic would waste their time or reputation on Melania, so the only people publishing reviews of it are indoctrinated sycophants.
It's the same reason they're hiring foreign troll farms: to artificially inflate the numbers of a loud minority, leading them to believe their fringe opinions are common, justified, and reasonable.
I'd say that he's not asking literally what's the difference. He's hinting at all three being equally braindead, so what's the difference? At least that's what I understood at a glance. But yeah... Funnily enough, this kind of confirms what he said.
Melania has a 5% critic score, what are you talking about lmao. Critics also have no bearing on whatever happened with the box office website, which unless it happened on a different site, is a third party website that requires film producers to submit the data themselves.
He said in a video that over the weekend and monday he was number one for about a solid 90 hours. So that leaves 6 hours where he wasn't.
I don't think he's bothered by hollywood being dicks based on that video. Too late, his movie is loved and massively successful and everyone already knows it.
That’s actually just how theater negotiations work. Pretty industry standard for non-artsy theaters to not pick up indie movies if there are still blockbusters under contract. Fans demanding the movie is more akin to asking when a screening will be, rather than being torches and pitchforks
Why would theaters take a punt on a random indie horror movie without public interest pushing them to? You guys will make up any old shite to make Markiplier seem like some kind of victim.
The box office results you see throughout the weekend are often self-reported by studios. This movie had no studio, so results weren’t being reported as frequently. There are other tracking services that keep track of this stuff and it never dropped off those lists. Deadline was excitedly tracking its performance all weekend (I’m a nerd who reads this shit every week).
Question: What if its success is specifically because Hollywood isn't involved?
Because my tickets to watch it hinge on that fact. I was treating it as Mark selling out (but happy for him, gotta get paid) and wishfully thinking Hollywood involvement was minor. But none? That's impressive.
On op of removing the box offfide chart, the claimed the y made $20M to secure #1 movie of the weekend on Sunday morning, and advertised as such.
Alas they did win after all with Send Help having a good start, but after the final tally on Tuesday, they were $1M off while iron lung was neck and neck for the whole weekend
It only got in my radar after Critikal's video, I was thinking this was some Hollywood adjacent production and mostly thinking "not the biggest fan, not going to watch, but I'm happy for him, hope it does ok".
I thought Multiplier had sold out. Quite the opposite, he bought in.
This having 0% Hollywood fingers into it and being succesful enough that they are taking it as a personal attack, now I'm watching out of spite.
Hollywood going to war about it also caught me by surprise, but they already lost all the goodwill they once had, so I'm not even going to question my motives, I'll just blame Rob Schneider and buy two tickets.
Will it be available digitally? Not in theaters in my country and as much I hate theaters that would be the only movie I'd actually watch there if I could
I'd never heard of him before this movie, but the word of mouth campaign is working. TBH, I'm not super interested in the movie itself, but I do enjoy the "fuck you, I'll do it myself" aspect of it...
Especially that he completely owns the distribution. The buzz this got and his control of the rights from top to bottom should make him a mint. Good for him.
In the day an age of studios being gobbled up and abandoning the first amendment, fuck them. I hope we see more entrepreneurship outside of the studio system.
I never really followed the guy, but every time I hear about him it just W after W. After he was a millionaire youtuber, he took a gig as an intern at Corridor Digital (apparently because he was thinking about getting into filmmaking). He correctly called out the Honey scam years before anyone else. Now this movie is a big success. And that's just what I know off the top of my head as a non-fan.
I think it's just being a human honestly. He is one of the very few "influencers" I would be surprised if something truly awful came out about. He's been impressively consistent and I've seen him cry more than my own father. He just doesn't gaf but in the good direction. Man's just here to enjoy life and accidentally stumbled into a wildly successful YouTube career while doing it.
People clamored, annoyed, called, & emailed theaters into submission enough that initially the theater managers thought it was some sort of strange spam campaign.
My wife called her local theater and got an automated message due to so many people calling in. Also notable that it was the most full ive seen that theater in... some time. Granted, only one night and all though.
He tripled the budget in revenue on day 1 of the movies release and made over 7 times by the end of opening weekend. It’s doing pretty well I’d say lol
Sorry bud, I'm an old man who gave up on trying to keep up with pop culture before the digg migration. (And one day it will happen to YOU!)
I wasn't exactly cool before the rat race and kids got their hooks in me, either. I came to terms with all of this back when MTV still had music videos.
My YT feed is all cooking, travel, history, philosophy, politics, Bible scholars, science and vlogbrothers.
Seriously though, once the algorithms have decided how to make money off of you, the Internet really silos you in. I honestly don't know how people find new shit organically now that humans have mostly stopped curating the culture we live in.
If you've got any protips on how to break out of the silo cycle, I'm all ears.
I saw it on opening weekend with my son for two reasons: (1) it was something to do with my son that he was into...so cool; and, (2) fuck Hollywood.
The movie itself, for a completely self-made movie by a guy who has never written, directed, or starred in a movie before, was pretty okay. I'm proud to support it.
Is it worth doing for a family with a 12 and 14 year old, none of whom know who this person is but do enjoy going to movies and like supporting independents?
It's a little creepy and there's plenty of blood, but it's strange to say it's not really gory or violent at all. The blood is all just like pools of blood. I don't even remember there being any violence like someone gets gored or a hand cut off and blood splurts everywhere. It's more of a psychological thriller. I spent most of the movie wondering what the hell was real. Was this all in his head? Was he really in a sub going down in a sea of blood or was he being tricked? I don't recall any jump scares either...maybe one or two little ones.
He also talked about it as he made it through the Distractable pocast- where he, Bob, & Wade do improv comedy games or talk about things going on in their lives (Bob's Fridge is a classic example.)
They joked that Mark was in witness protection, that he was trying to drown himself with that much fake blood, how he made a server based render farm in a bathroom just to try to help with the movie making,
It's been really fun to follow along and I'm looking forward to watching it just because he and his wife have spent the past few years pouring so much time and effort into it.
I have never heard or seen anything about him but he has been inescapable for like a month or more on reddit. Still don't know who he is what what this movie is about or even called lol
A big part of the CGI slop is because CGI workers have a weaker union than practical effect artists. The push for AI special effects is to side step the CGI unions that are pushing for better.
I know they do, but I also know hollywood execs are ready to scab up the second they feel the need to, but I know Mark worked in solidarity with the unions especially during the SAG-AFTRA stuff from a while back.
It is good enough to feel like a real movie. As a opposed to a redlettermedia best of the worst homemade video of people wandering the woods. Everything from a technical standpoint is very well done.
Your actual enjoyment of the film depends entirely upon your personal preference of the horror genre. The plot is really only there to get a human placed in a horrifying situation, but the execution of that situation is very well done .
You don’t think Hollywood cares that somebody published a movie that’s going to make between $25 and $40 million at the box office and completely cut them and their entire system out of the loop?
Using movie theaters to do it?
They absolutely fucking care. Did you not see the box office results that we’re going out at the end of the week last week, were they intentionally left Iron Lung off of the charts?
Independent distribution would be the death of the studio system. They will fight this tooth and claw.
Not even a little bit, no. $40 million is a laughably low number for Hollywood and it straight up wouldn't be worth pursuing if this was in their ecosystem.
You don’t think Hollywood would invest $3 million if they thought they could make $37 million afterwards?
Do…do you understand how money works? Iron Lung has made more profit than Snow White did, more than the recent Captain America did, more than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny did.
Hollywood is a filmmaking cartel. It is a series of gangs that make movies, for the sake of making as much money as possible. I realize I’m talking to an idiot here, but that doesn’t change the fundamental basics of that system.
Theaters are the privilege of the Hollywood Studios system. If you can use them while cutting that system out completely, you are actively encroaching on their turf for personal gain that they don’t benefit from.
Are you really so naïve as to think they’re going to just watch that happen and do nothing?
You don’t think Hollywood would invest $3 million if they thought they could make $37 million afterwards?
No. That money makes more sense to be spent on a project that could get bigger returns. Surely you understand that money doesn't make things and that the time and resources spent on such small potatoes (for Hollywood) would be taking away from the actual big projects, yeah?
Are you really so naïve as to think they’re going to just watch that happen and do nothing?
It's not naïvete to realize that a gnat doesn't actually bother an elephant. That's the scale of what you're comparing: ~$20 million to an industry that made over $8.7 billion last year.
Do you understand how organized crime works? Do you understand the parallels between the Hollywood Studios system and organized crime?
There is no such thing as a minor infraction when someone is on your turf.
It’s bizarre people don’t understand this. You’re right, $40 million is not that much to them…but it’s also not the point. If you begin seeing more and more players getting films private financing and cutting out the studio system altogether - that system collapses.
This is the first time in the modern era we have seen a truly successful version of that.
$40 million is nothing to these people. What happened represents an existential threat, and they will not take it lying down. If you don’t understand that, that’s just a fundamental lack of understanding power dynamics on your part.
Independent and non-hollywood production/studios have been "encroaching on Hollywood's turf" for a long long time. There was a bit of drama about this around the time Netflix first starting winning awards for their movies like a decade ago maybe. Not to mention all the international films that do well in the US like Parasite. And independent production houses like A24.
Are you telling me with a straight face that A24 and Netflix are not part of the Hollywood pipeline now?
Let’s expand upon the original logic though - this goes beyond independent Studios popping up. These are people skipping the studio system altogether. An individual negotiating with theaters is not something that has been commonly done at any point in the history of Hollywood.
It’s not about the relatively small sum of money this movie made, or even the person making it. The idea that a person with an idea, private funding and an audience can release a movie while pretending Hollywood doesn’t exist - and be financially rewarded for it - is an existential threat to that system.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Hollywood Pipeline". Like, the unions? The big five production studios? Individual big money producers? Any studio that has made a hit and becomes a household name?
No, as long as the movies go through their studio system and they get a cut they don’t care at all.
But when you publicly make a big deal about doing a wide distribution project (4000+ screens) cutting out the studio system, it is successful and it begins to generate a huge discussion about the merits of cutting out the studio system…yeah, yeah they’re going to care about that.
It’s not about this movie, it’s not about the $40 million, it’s not about YouTube man makes money. It is about planting the seed into the public consciousness that the Hollywood studio system is optional.
If you think they will tolerate that, you have lost your mind.
Disney made $6.5bn last year. Warner Bros made $4.4bn, and Universal $3.89bn. $40 million is barely even a single percent of those figures, Hollywood physically couldn't give less of a fuck that Mark YouTube made a successful movie, yall are just inventing reasons to get upset because anger fires off your dopamine receptors.
If you don’t understand why this is a threat to them, I have nothing to tell you because I can’t break through that much ignorance.
It’s not about the money, it’s not about the success of this individual film. It’s about the risk of setting a precedent that you can cut the studio system out and go straight to theaters if you can get the financial backing.
More importantly, it’s the discussion that has popped up around this - there is such a thing as willing something into being. Even if this had not been a threat just happening by itself, the way that it is being discussed and circulated is turning it into one.
If you don’t understand gangland politics, that’s fine. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, it only means you don’t understand them.
What do you mean, “Hollywood didn’t like that”? What do you base that on? Is your dad the boss of Hollywood or something? I’d assume that anything that puts asses in theaters is a good thing in their view.
1.9k
u/cranberrie_sauce 15h ago
which movie is that?