How Markiplier’s $50M Movie Changed Hollywood Forever

11:39Colin Rosenblum:So this was him making a film in the way that he would make a YouTube video and that there was nothing keeping him from doing it the exact way that he wanted to. Exactly. So that I think is actually really important. Okay, my second reason, this is not his first rodeo. Like it may be his first time on a screen as big as these and these types of theaters. But if you look at his history, in 2017, he did a live tour called the You're Welcome Tour, and he sold out thousand-seat theaters across North America and Europe. And it was like a sketch comedy-style tour, like an interactive type of experience.

12:18Colin Rosenblum:Thousand-seat theaters eight years ago, basically. It's like, that's a serious proof point that not a lot of creators would have. Some creators have it, and I think it would be important if you're thinking about working with them on making a film. But he had it eight years ago to a pretty big degree. Let alone in 2019 and 2022, he made YouTube Originals. He did a heist with Markiplier, and he did Markiplier in Space, which were at a much higher production value because they were in coordination with YouTube. And they were playable movies. So he essentially made three movies for one because he would show you a scene and then he would give you an ultimatum and you could either go left or right.

12:59Colin Rosenblum:And so he essentially had to make three movies for one. So he has experience acting, working on these types of sets. And then he also has experience getting his audience to rally around one of his projects. Also in 2022, he told his audience that if they could get his two podcasts, number one on the charts, he would start an OnlyFans, which is an absurd premise.

13:24Samir Chaudry:Yeah, sure.

13:25Colin Rosenblum:But within a couple of months, they did. His podcast became number one. Yeah. He started an OnlyFans for what he called the most tasteful of nudes. Which I did not look into for the purposes of this project, but I would... Okay, all right.

13:38Samir Chaudry:Jesse has them up right there.

13:39Colin Rosenblum:They're up on the screen? They are, yeah.

13:41Samir Chaudry:Okay. We can show those. Yeah, I think we can show that.

13:44Colin Rosenblum:I think we can show that. Yeah, I didn't anticipate showing that in the episode. Yeah. If you're listening, maybe come onto YouTube or take a look at the video. and all of the money that he made from the OnlyFans went to charity. Right. So I say that only to say that like he didn't pocket the money from his OnlyFans. Right, right, yeah. But that was an instance where he rallied his audience around actually like getting something that he's going to make to number one. And that moment with the podcast and the OnlyFans I actually think is really significant because it speaks to the type of creator that he is.

14:18Colin Rosenblum:And we've talked about this on the show. a couple years ago now probably, but there are relationship-based creators, which we would say is like an Emma Chamberlain or a vlogger. You are there for the relationship. We bring this up often, but she made a video called You Totally Caught Me Making Soup.

14:36Samir Chaudry:Yeah.

14:37Colin Rosenblum:And you only click on that video if you're there for the relationship with her. That is by no means a sensational idea. Then there are idea-based creators who, like a Mr. Beast, wear last person to take their hand off a Lamborghini. Right. You're there for the idea, and he is the host bringing you through it. But essentially, it is the idea that is getting you in the door, not your expectation that Jimmy is going to share with you something about him personally. Right. That will connect you with him. Now, Markiplier fits somewhere in the middle here with what we would call a community-based creator.

15:12Colin Rosenblum:Yeah. Where he has deeply creative ideas, but they are only to satiate his direct community. They are not made for an audience who does not know who he is.

15:26Samir Chaudry:The other thing I wrote down during the movie is participatory media. Meaning like even me being there, even us making this, like we are participating in the story of Markiplier making the movie because he kind of encourages it. He makes it a part of the experience of being one of his fans or being a fan of his work to participate in it. And something I've noticed is just this week as I've been looking into Markiplier, I'm getting so much fan-made content about Markiplier in all of my feeds now. Instagram, Twitter, like I opened up Twitter and the first thing I saw was drawings of Markiplier. And I'm like, oh, this is so interesting because he is a community leader.

16:09Samir Chaudry:He deeply understands that he's not in a relationship where he makes something and you watch it. He's actually making something more like a video game. All of his media is like a video game that you also get to play.

16:26Colin Rosenblum:Yes. And that is reason number three. He's not making his videos and his projects for his audience. He's making them with his audience. And when you have a true two-way street, that creates a different level of engagement and opportunity to actually activate a large group of people to go somewhere. It's very different than, you know, a creator like, I don't know, the Stokes Twins or something, right? Where, like, you know, we talked about it on the last episode, the secret room videos. Those are very much entertainment. You are made to sit down, and they're mainly for kids, sit and watch something and then move on to the next video.

17:03Colin Rosenblum:You're not really interacting with that story.

17:05Samir Chaudry:Right. Like you could get the wrong signal from seeing that like a video like that has over 100 million views. Again, if you're someone in Hollywood, you might be like, oh, of course, great. Like these views will turn into physical attendance or ticket sales. And that's just not the case. It's not true that all views will drive visits. and I think the way to tell is how engaged the community is, not just, not from comments. I'm not talking about comments and likes and shares, like not your traditional social. I think I wrote three things that people can use to tell how engaged a community is, just quickly.

17:48Samir Chaudry:If you're looking, if somebody has a lot of views, how can you actually tell if there's like a deeply engaged community that's operating in this two-way street. Number one, Reddit community engagement. Is there a Reddit community around this creator and how engaged are they? I think that's like a real telltale sign. It's not a requirement, but it would be a really clear cut sign that there's like activity and action happening within this community. Number two is kind of what you just mentioned, but I wrote down the simple thumbnail test, meaning can they make a simple thumbnail and millions of people click on it?

18:21Samir Chaudry:So Markiplier is one of his most recent thumbnails is called, it just says, my hair is gone. And it's just an image of him that's kind of dark. Yeah. 2.6 million views. I think that should immediately signal to you there's something going on here that's like a deep relationship.

18:36Colin Rosenblum:Yeah, the less accessible the title and thumbnail, the more that video is a filter for how many people actually care.

18:43Samir Chaudry:You have to be such a specific person to click on this video. That's a real telltale sign of the engagement.

18:49Colin Rosenblum:Can I give an example of something that he did like that? Yeah. So he did an entire project, if you're unfamiliar, called Unas Anas in 2019, from 2019 to 2020, which was a brand new channel where he uploaded every single day for 365 days. And the story of the channel was that it will be deleted at the end. And in that year, the channel gained 4.5 million subscribers. It had over 800 million views. And the final live stream had 1.5 million live concurrent viewers. and even I was like, wait, what was this? Like this was an ephemeral YouTube channel.

19:24Samir Chaudry:I remember hearing about this. Yeah.

19:27Colin Rosenblum:And speaking of Reddit, I went to his Reddit and there was an amazing comment. Someone was like, hey, what was this? I wasn't around. I wasn't following him when this happened, but I've heard about it. What was it? And a member of his community came in and said, it's basically like if you found out that your friend had one year to live, how would you spend your time and allocate your time and think about those memories with that friend. That's cool. And this was a difficult project to make 365 videos a year, knowing that you're going to delete all of that work. That is not something you do because you're hoping it pays you off in five years or that people can still watch it and become members of your audience.

20:08Colin Rosenblum:That is strictly for the community there and now in that moment to share something.

20:14Markiplier:Why would someone put all that effort into something they were just going to get rid of? they were just going to throw away. And I said, it'll make sense when it ends. Because I firmly believe that the entirety of what something is cannot be truly appreciated until it ends.

20:31Colin Rosenblum:And that to me is the epitome of a community-based creator doing community-based content. Yeah. Like that project, that's why Markiplier can fill theaters and gross$48 million on this movie.

20:45Samir Chaudry:so i also wrote down for the love of the game because uh when we sat down with anthpo who's a creator who does these big kind of viral stunts uh stuff like uh the timothy chalamet lookalike contest he did this experiment called cheeseball man where he put up posters and created a superhero that ate a jar of cheese balls in new york city a lot of the stuff he does is just for the love of the game like there's no commercial intent like timothy chalamet lookalike contest did not have a sponsor. It was just like, he thought it was cool. And of course that's...

21:17Colin Rosenblum:I'm imagining all the people who haven't heard of Cheeseball Man knowing, wait, what? Hold on. Can you explain why that matters at all? What?

21:26Samir Chaudry:Basically what I'm saying is like, of course he has a business. He does advertising. He does brand deals. He recently launched an agency. But like a lot of the stuff he does, you can tell, and even just out of his mouth, he said it to us, it's like for the love of the game. It's because he just loves it. He thinks it's cool. And I think you know Markiplier what you can feel in a lot of his projects is there's that element of for the love of the game that like he said he's made an unfathomable amount of money now so at this point like why work hard at this point why put this much effort into doing this like making a movie's hard that's because he loves it and you can feel that and I think that is a very very new or unique feeling in the world of creators right now when it feels like most creators are here as a profession now.

22:12Samir Chaudry:There is obviously commercial intent when you're watching a creator. I mean, even with Mark, it's not like there's not, there is of course. But when you get to a point where you can feel someone's desire to do something, when you can, when you watch Markiplier cry because of the success of this film on his channel, you feel something different as an audience member. And I think that is the, there's a purity here that is pretty hard to replicate. Oh, sorry.

22:43Markiplier:Yeah, I'm just really, really happy. And I'm really, really grateful. He himself said on The Town that it would be hard to replicate.

22:55Colin Rosenblum:Yeah. But then he also went and called it a win for independent creators. Yeah. it just got me thinking like okay if he's such a unique case who is winning out of this historic sort of case study of Markiplier bringing this film into theaters

23:12Samir Chaudry:I think Markiplier and his community win number one right I actually think it sounds like Centurion wins his theaters are win yeah win well his distribution partner that he cut a 50-50 deal with they were probably like we thought this was some indie film like we're gonna what this made 50 million dollars yeah They must be. Already? Yeah, they must be floored. Theater is definitely one. I think the reason why it's a win for creators is because, you know, we're still at this point where headlines hit that's like, did you hear that a YouTuber made a good movie that people watched? You know, and I think that that is an important thing to happen still.

23:48Colin Rosenblum:Let me read the headline from The Atlantic.

23:50Samir Chaudry:Yeah.

23:51Colin Rosenblum:Because it speaks to that sentiment perfectly. It just says, a no-name director to everyone but his 38 million fans. and that headline is important. Like people who read The Atlantic or see that shared who are like, wait, who's this? A YouTuber? What happened?

24:06Samir Chaudry:There's a credibility factor that happens to creators. Now, when it comes to replicating this, I think you have to think about like what even needs to be replicated. Like it's not actually the financial outcome. That's very hard to replicate and you need to have dedicated 24 years of your life to a community in the way that Markiplier did and have the impact on a community that Markiplier did to get that outcome. Yeah. Okay, so that's number one. Like, sure, but put your head down and dedicate 24 years of your life into, like, a passionate craft, and you can maybe also have an outcome. Not promised, but you could.

24:42Samir Chaudry:You also need to make a good film, which is a whole other thing, let alone having the opportunity. Yes. Making something good. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't traditionally like a movie like this, but I was hooked. Yeah. Mark, if you're watching this and listening, you are an exceptional actor. Like I was blown away. I thought creatively everything from like the performance of this film to the look of it, to the sound design, to the way the story was dripped out. Did you say dripped out because of all the blood? I did. There's a lot of blood. There's a lot of drips. Yeah. The whole thing, like this is good.

25:18Samir Chaudry:This is very good. And I just want to acknowledge it is hard to make something good. Yeah. It is really hard to make something good. It's very easy to make something mediocre, very hard to make something good. So I just, you know, there's a lot of like analysis we can do on like, oh, how he engaged the community, all this, but like, just want to acknowledge the performance, the craft, the storytelling. It's very good. You made a great film. Agreed.

25:45Colin Rosenblum:Cannot state that enough.

25:47Samir Chaudry:But I think the win is for creators like us to understand that as the Hollywood system comes towards us as the opportunities get bigger, as our industry gets bigger, to continue to remember that the thing that made us is self-reliance, that we can do it ourselves. And I think he is showing us like, this inspires me to go like, oh yeah, dude, you're right. The ideas that we feel passionate about, we should just make. That maybe sounds so obvious, but that's where YouTube started.

26:19Colin Rosenblum:Is that experience that much better if we bring our audience through it? We bring all of you through it and make something that you feel like you're, you're more a part of the story.

26:27Samir Chaudry:Yeah. We're, we're working on a lot of stuff that's behind the scenes and trying to make deals and trying to put stuff together. And it's like, it's awesome and it's cool and it's fun, but it's, it's, it's an old school model where I think the win for creators is the recognition that as we all get bigger, as we all have bigger budgets, have more dollars to play with. the reminder is it is there for us to make cool projects. There's a Walt Disney quote that I used to look at all the time in my 20s when we first started making videos. And it said, we do not make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies.

27:07Samir Chaudry:And that I think is like the reminder of this Markiplier project is you just like, We are in this for our own freedom of creativity.

27:22Colin Rosenblum:And it's a reminder that that creativity can potentially go farther and be seen by more people than we previously had thought. Yeah. Because the power of the people who are considered gatekeepers is shifting. Yeah, totally. The fact that the theaters were as up for grabs as they were, I did not even realize that. Like my assumption when I would walk into an AMC or a Regal is like, oh yeah, the independent person has almost no ability to decide that they would like to be on these screens. And they are much more up for grabs when you look at how grassroots this movement was. Totally. And I'm not saying if you make things that you should be thinking about how you can get into 1 ,500 or 3 ,000 theaters, but even a small theater is up for grabs right now and is available.

28:16Colin Rosenblum:Convening a group of people to watch your work in person is a validating and unique experience, and it's up for grabs. It made me think about the fact that a local theater here in Santa Monica reached out to us a couple years ago. Yeah, you're right. And it's a cool old vintage theater, and they just said, hey, I'm a fan. I watch you guys. and like, you know, we have open nights. Yeah, totally. You want to fill it. And we never did anything with it. And I'm thinking to myself like, yeah, that theater is up for grabs. Right. And what a cool experience we could put on.

28:44Samir Chaudry:And physical experiences are much more interesting right now. I mean, I'll read a comment from our last video about the world of abundance online, how much digital content there is and how AI is creating an exponential world of abundance. This is from Mark Miller. He said, this episode really makes you think about the future of content creators. The idea that scarcity and human connections will become the true added value in an era of AI generated abundance is an extremely interesting perspective. Great video, Colin and Tamir. Another one from Melanie Ball. The offline world has already begun.

29:16Samir Chaudry:More people are getting into it. I think with AI content, that's what's pushing people to disconnect. This is a pendulum moment towards IRL. And then Mitch and his van. When authenticity can be duplicated and uploaded, then it seems to me that the only alternative is to go live and offer regular meetups with your audience. So I'll pause there. But like, basically, people reacting to our last video about this increase in AI generated content, this increase in just abundance of digital content and saying opportunities to get out and be with other like -minded people. like we should not overlook the fact that if you went to iron lung even today when we were in the theater i was looking around i was like should we just talk to some people that's kind of how i felt

30:01Colin Rosenblum:i was like oh the movie's playing so i can't i'm already on my phone so i shouldn't interrupt you

30:05Samir Chaudry:but i kind of wanted to be like but you you're in on it yeah you're part of a community right and that feels good that you're like oh we're all here because we're into the same thing you don't you don't really maybe you feel like that with like when i was younger and you go see like jackass

30:20Colin Rosenblum:MTV movie. If you really feel like it's made for you and your generation. But yeah, if I go to Mission Impossible, I don't look at the guy next to me and I'm like, yeah, man. You like this too?

30:30Samir Chaudry:There's a deeply human feeling to being in the Iron Lung movie right now. And I'd recommend you guys go check it out. If you're fans of YouTube and fans of this world at all, go watch Iron Lung. Go support it. It's really cool to be in that theater and look around and be like, this is dope. That's just mark on the screen. Like that's it. Yeah, that's that guy from YouTube.

30:50Colin Rosenblum:That's just that guy from YouTube. Acting and looking really cool.

30:53Samir Chaudry:Yeah, it's insane. I would say the other place where we are seeing this happen a little bit and maybe a bit of like adjacent or tangential, but like I thought about retail stores and I thought about that time we went to Walmart with Jimmy, with Mr. Beast and looked at his Feastables layouts in the aisles. His shelf space. His shelf space. And how into shelf space he got and how much he learned the amazing distribution of physical shelf space, right? And how different that was from digital space.

31:33Colin Rosenblum:Yeah, his eyes. You could see his eyes lit up with the opportunity to be a part of people's lives in real life.

31:40Samir Chaudry:In real life. and how different that was, that he became a part of, again, something that was scarce. He wanted, you know, different spaces in the Walmart. He wanted the end caps. He wanted spaces that were reserved for other people because they're scarce. And I think that's the thing about it. He wanted all the views the same way he wants all the views. Exactly, yeah. But he wanted the right ones. And I just think movie theaters are also like that. They're kind of like the retail stores for content, right? Like they're the old model of like the physical thing, but they're not so far gone. Like we are craving that physical connection and that opportunity to be in a room, look around and go like, we're part of something.

32:21Samir Chaudry:And I think Markiplier understanding that's at the center of his content is that you look around and you go, I'm a part of something. If you know, you know. So that's the difference. That is a dramatic difference. Like, as we've said before, views are becoming available online. You can get, you can figure out how to get views. Now, doing that over 25 years, that's not easy, but like you can figure out how to get views right now. Communicating a passion and building a community that is regularly engaged with each other, that's different. Those are few and far between. There's only a few creators who can do that.

32:59Colin Rosenblum:To that scale. To that scale. Yeah, there are a lot of creators with communities. Yeah. But of that scale that could make this impact, I don't know how many there are. Yeah, there's not many. It's a unique, very unique and cool case study. Yeah. Okay, now, this also made me think about

33:15Samir Chaudry:this Jacksepticeye clip where he's talking about the Mount Rushmore of YouTube. Made me ask the question, is Markiplier on the Mount Rushmore of YouTube? Should we see Jacksepticeye's? Yeah, let's watch. Mount Rushmore of YouTubers. Ooh.

33:29Markiplier:I mean, we got to put Felix up there just because he put Let's Playing on the map for a lot of us. And the reason why many of us are even doing it as a career now is because of him. Smosh are on that as well for the exact same reasons. They got in and started doing YouTube. And now, again, lucky enough to call all those people my friends. I think they're an incredible channel. And they went from amazing to maybe not so good to now better than they've ever been. I weirdly enough I think I would put Ryan Higa on the Mount Rushmore I don't think I ever really talk about him that much but I think for what he did for the platform back then again it's those earlier people who really just put YouTube on the map and were doing it when maybe sometimes don't even get paid to do it they just did it for the love of the game and up there as well is Jenna Marbles just right up until she quit she was still incredible I think I would like to see her upload again because I think it was very joyous to watch.

34:23Markiplier:And I watched basically every single video that was coming out, but I missed that sort of like fun, goofy, do whatever you want. Like turn on the camera and go energy. And that's sort of like the light in the darkness to be cliche about it, but it was definitely, it's just like turn off your brain, have a good time, forget about what's going on in the world kind of channel. Wow. So he went way back.

34:42Samir Chaudry:He went way back, but I mean, Mount Rushmore goes way back. That's true. That's how that works. Yeah. That's how that works. It goes pretty well back.

34:48Colin Rosenblum:I'm going to probably put some people from Modern Era on it,

34:50Samir Chaudry:but yeah, you're right. It's funny he mentions PewDiePie in the context of bringing Let's Play to YouTube, where it's like you actually look at it, like the most successful YouTubers are the gaming YouTubers, and a lot of them are the Let's Play YouTubers, the ones who built a relationship within that participatory media world. With very long-form content. Yeah. I mean, we would all have such a different Mount Rushmore, of course, for our own influences, but if we're looking at the platform, Like it is hard to overlook Markiplier here.

35:20Colin Rosenblum:Yeah. I mean, after looking into him more now, it makes perfect sense that he would be. Yeah. Yeah. I'd have to put Rhett and Link, but I would prefer to put them together. Together. They're one. I mean, he said Smosh. So you could put, yeah, Rhett and Link, I think can be one.

35:33Samir Chaudry:Yeah. I agree with that. It'd be very hard for me to suggest that Casey Neistat's not on there. I think he influenced an entire generation on the platform. Jenna Marbles was one that I didn't expect, but I actually think is important. Super important. Personally, when I saw the Jenner Marbles face video, that's what made me realize I could upload to YouTube.

35:53Colin Rosenblum:The epitome of having a constraint. Yes. Like being in a room or being in a single frame. Yes. And making the most out of that frame.

35:59Samir Chaudry:Again, that was like self-reliance. It was like, that's it. If you're good, make something and do it with whatever you have. If it's a MacBook computer and that's the camera you have, no problem.

36:10Colin Rosenblum:It's tough for me because there's people that I love who have stopped or have changed or have evolved, like Elle Mills, like Emma Chamberlain, that have made a massive impact. But I feel like to be on the Mount Rushmore, do you need to be consistently uploading still to this day? No. You don't? The people who are on Mount Rushmore aren't even alive.

36:34Samir Chaudry:Look, man, I don't like looking at Mount Rushmore that often, but that's a good point. Yeah. I think Emma could be on there. I think it'd be tough to also say that MKBHD isn't on there. MKBHD is a pretty prolific creator. It's not easy to only have five slots. That's not easy. All right. Well, we probably did more than five. Yeah. But yeah, I'm curious what you guys think in terms of your Mount Rushmore YouTube.

36:59Colin Rosenblum:I'm going to put Yes Theory on there. Yeah. Because I think they are the best, least talked about channel. I agree with that. On YouTube. I'm very biased. They're good friends. But yeah, if you have your Mount Rushmore. We didn't do this exercise correctly. We did not. We just named creators we like. Yeah, that's unfair. Yeah. The tough, you have to pick four.

37:19Samir Chaudry:We did not do that. Yeah, we didn't do that. But yeah, we didn't follow our own advice. And definitely go see Iron Lung. It is a very good film and a, honestly, a huge win for independent creativity. And a reminder that if you have an idea, just make it. All right. See you next week.

37:43Markiplier:But what I wanted to tell you, my daughter is studying, semester, laptop, software, software, internet, so a master is really cheap. Say, she can get that back. You mean from the Steuer to set up, but she doesn't pay. No, it's a failure, it's a failure. She makes it simple with Visa Steuer. And if she works, it's kaching. That's it? Safe. Visa Steuer. Hol dir dein Geld zurück. Now, let's try it out!