Markiplier's Iron Lung Is The Template For Video Game Film Adaptations, Take Note

Markiplier’s Iron Lung hasn’t just outperformed at the box-office, it’s outperformed most video game film adaptations.

While I don’t religiously watch Mark ‘Markiplier’ Fischbach on YouTube I’ve been a subscriber for many, many years now.

I watched his videos a lot back in the day and still try to keep up with his latest projects and videos, such as his collaboration with Ethan Nestor on Unus Annus.

Having that context seeing him write, direct and star in a feature-length film about the indie horror Iron Lung was surreal, and after watching it over the weekend I have a lot of thoughts.

For those who don’t know, Iron Lung is a game made by David Szymanski, which Markiplier played on his channel and he clearly had a lot of fun with it, as did many others. With a simple premise but rich, mysterious lore it made for the perfect game to talk about online as by the end of a complete playthrough there are still so many questions left unanswered.

The Iron Lung film is around two hours long and is in my opinion the right way to adapt a video game for the big-screen, and here’s why.

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David Szymanski

It’s All About Passion

Mark and the rest of the production team clearly love Iron Lung. The passion shines through the cast’s performances, the set design, the costumes, the practical and visual effects, all of it.

There’s such distinct love and admiration for the source material and it was those emotions that helped the team overcome what I’d argue to be the biggest hurdle in adapting a video game for film audiences. Where can the story go?

While video game films are often made with both gamers and non-gamers in mind, it’s the former who are going to obviously get the most out of it.

You can’t just tell the story again though as players have already seen it umpteen times so you have to expand it without forgetting what made it so popular in the first place.

Iron Lung does this exceptionally well, as I never would have expected a two hour film from a game you can knock out in around 45 minutes,

Mark and his team took both facts and theories from the game and interwove them into what’s essentially an extended cut.

It took what were previously just environmental hazards and made them psychologically thrilling, whilst also delving deeper into the main character’s backstory and what earned them a spot in the Iron Lung.

It explored areas of the game fans wanted to see and learn more about without just giving us the answers. If anything it aroused even more questions.

Fundamentally Iron Lung doesn’t just understand its source material it understands the audience.

To me, video game adaptations aren’t about rewriting the source material so it makes sense to your average joe, because that’s then alienating for gamers. It’s about selecting and focusing on the story’s strongest aspect before diving deeper, perhaps with a few minor adjustments to pacing so it flows better.

Iron Lung is a passion project through and through, and it deserves its flowers. Future video game adaptations, take note.