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Chapter 1: What low-budget horror films from YouTubers are trending in Hollywood?
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We're finding more abandoned toys each day. We're doomed! We've got Spider-Man, Supergirl. We've got one with Anne Hathaway and dinosaurs. But all those big ones aren't necessarily what's got Hollywood abuzz. People are talking about movies with much smaller budgets, in particular Iron Lung, Obsession, and Back Rooms, because they all have one thing in common.
And if you don't know what it is, we'll tell you on today's Explain from Vox. We come to this place from Today Explained. Okay, Stephen Zajcic is the senior editor of tech and politics at The Hollywood Reporter, and we asked him here to tell us more about what iron lung obsession and back rooms have in common. And what they have in common is YouTube, by the way.
It's been a pretty rollercoaster few weeks in Hollywood in terms of what's been taking the box office by storm, and that is a number of YouTubers. It really starts back in January with a creator named Markiplier who did a film called Iron Lung. You did test this thing, right? This is the test. This movie made $21 million opening worldwide.
Markiplier's Iron Lung has now almost earned 50 million worldwide. He's self-financed this and self-distributed it, which is not normal at all. But the two big ones in the last few weeks are Obsession by Curry Barker. I love you so, so, so, so, so much. That blew the doors off the box office and has now become the highest grossing movie all time in the history of Focus Features.
And then not long after that, we had Kane Parsons, or a.k.a. Kane Pixels, who many listeners may know. He's got three million followers on YouTube for his creation Back Rooms. I found a place. And he put it all together, actually created a new film. And the film also, I think, will become, if it isn't already, the highest grossing movie ahead of films like Lady Bird and Midsommar.
And I think Marty Supreme was the last domino to fall for A24. Got to be higher grossing than all of them. So a pretty big revolution going on. Now, people who hear YouTube creators are making movies might think that these movies look like the Joe Rogan experience, but these movies do not look like the Joe Rogan experience.
In fact, if you didn't know that they were affiliated with some sort of YouTube creator, you might just assume they're your typical studio horror movie, right? Yeah, that's right. I mean, low-budget horror, obviously, Sean, is a genre that's pretty time-tested in Hollywood. You can go back to Paranormal Activity about 17, 18 years ago. Go back to the Blair Witch Project almost three decades ago.
Shaky camera. Some of your OG listeners might even remember seeing that in theaters. And so low-budget horror is a huge genre for Hollywood. People are used to seeing these movies that don't need any kind of fancy effects, don't need big stars. And, you know, let's face it. These are creators who are used to making things
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Chapter 2: How did Markiplier's film 'Iron Lung' perform at the box office?
That all happens. I think that is a big fear here, that this is just the filmmaker is his or her own franchise. I think what's been striking is that each of these films has a vision. Now, it may not be everyone's vision. I'll tell you just kind of from my own perspective, you know, you watch Obsession. That feels to me like a fairly traditional narrative thriller, and it plays that way.
You saw the reviews kind of reflect that. You watch Backrooms if you're not maybe extremely online, if you're not an Alpha Gen Z type person who's kind of used to seeing these like few minute mysterious memes. It's beautiful. Am I right? That movie, to me, resonated in a different way.
But what's been striking to me is that it's not like the movies are doing well simply because of their filmmakers. They're doing well because of their vision. Whether you like that vision, of course, that's up to you. And you called it a disruption, the success of these three films, and in some cases, the enormous success of, say, Back Rooms. Tell me about the disruption.
We'll start with the first one that came out back this winter, the Markiplier film, Iron Lung. This guy self-distributed his movie. Now, admittedly, he has 38 million followers or something in that vicinity, and he's been doing this a long time. I make an ungodly amount of money, and it feels unfair. My channel has had 17 billion views. That's insane. Yes, that's what I'm saying.
But to really go out there with no marketing support whatsoever and just kind of say, I'm going to put in theaters myself. He made, I think, $40 million here in the US, $10 million overseas.
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Chapter 3: What makes 'Obsession' by Curry Barker significant in the film industry?
You had a unique profit sharing model with the cast and crew. So I basically, I took their salary that I paid them for the production days. And I said like, I'm going to apply that again as a bonus.
And so just like whatever your salary was, it's now doubled. And then the other thing he did that was super interesting is he said, you know what? Instead of selling it to a Netflix or an HBO or one of these platforms that has been buying movies for years, I'm going to put it out myself on my platform on YouTube. Iron Lung is now available exclusively on YouTube.
So you can click the link that's up there, down there, or even on my face to go find it on YouTube movies. Don't know what YouTube movies is? It's where you can buy or rent movies on YouTube. Didn't know you could do that? Well, you can. Five bucks to rent, 10 bucks to buy. And again, you know, YouTube, that's the kind of thing where YouTube lets you keep a very big chunk of that change.
Obviously, their business model is not to buy stuff, buy libraries the way Netflix does. So he's kind of a disruptor to me, Markiplier, on both ends, where he put it out in theaters on his own and put it on YouTube, kind of kept it exclusive there. If we're talking about Barker and Parsons, I would say they're partial disruptors.
and plenty of sources too are like, well, this is just the new film school. You know, this is just people, you know, or the new film festival world where it's like, okay, we've always found, you know, the industry, the machine, if you will, has always found like talent in new places. And this is just another one.
Let's not assume the business is just going to continue as usual with just one more new way to find talent.
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Chapter 4: How does Kane Pixels' 'Backrooms' stand out among recent releases?
I'm saying there's going to be new modes of distribution, new modes of financing, new modes of marketing that go beyond just, hey, Do you find your director at a festival or online? Everything seems to be trending to YouTube or bending to YouTube's will, be it sports or be it podcasts or even like TV now with YouTube TV. YouTube is the place to be.
Why do these young filmmakers want to be in movie theaters? I mean, I feel like we on this show even have been talking for years about whether movie theaters are going to make it. Do we have any idea how many theaters in the country across the world have permanently shut down?
And now it looks like they might be having a big year with Odyssey and Toy Story and Dune, but why do these guys want to be in that space? There is money. People are paying 15, 20 bucks a pop, but there's also a lot of prestige and a lot of audience value that comes with it.
I mean, I talked to an executive at YouTube about this, and they were saying that, look, you know, we've seen this with creators for years. Their fans want to gather. You know, they may want to gather at VidCon. They may want to gather at a concert. They may want to gather at a book signing, at some other kind of creator event.
And theaters, even though obviously the creator is not physically there with them, it's just an extension of that same idea. Okay, so Hollywood is learning to love YouTube, and after a lot of kicking and screaming, it's getting ready to friend AI, too. We'll do that disruption with Stephen next on Today Explained. Support for the show today comes from Quince.
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Chapter 5: What storytelling techniques do YouTube filmmakers use in their movies?
That is like a flat wall. That is right down to, all right, so what's next? And it's not just Marty. I mean, there are other names in Hollywood who are saying, yeah, AI, let's engage. Who are they? Yeah. Yeah, well, look, Jim Cameron, I mean, I think predated Scorsese by a couple of years.
If we want to continue to see the kinds of movies that I've always loved and that I like to make and that I will go to see big effects heavy, you know, CG heavy films, we've got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half. Totally. Now, that's not about laying off half the staff out of the effects company. That's about doubling their speed to completion on a given shot. Right.
With the Brutalist and Brady Corbett in the Oscar race, all that was used for, he used it for a little bit of like accent tinkering so Adrian Brody could sound more Hungarian.
I actually talked to Matt Stone.
He and Trey Parker, the South Park guys, using it in partnership to do things we haven't seen done before. There's a Trump deepfake they used on their own show. Hi, kids. I'm Donald Trump, your president. And I'm going to read you a story. I mean, there is a lot of stuff coming in from all angles.
I think what we need to do, Sean, is just distinguish it between, you know, where are we automating art and where are we taking something that could be done by humans and is just being done either just as well or more likely not as well? buy machines to save money or for whatever reason.
And that to me, you know, whether you want to call it slop or just kind of like, you know, the instantification trend, like that to me is where we really have to be careful. Matt Stone said to me, he's like, I don't want it to do anything that humans can do because the reality is like, we have humans who can do that well. We don't need a technology to just kind of replace them.
I want to see it do something that a human can't do. Like that feels like, the tool aspect of it, not the automation replacement aspect. So I just, I don't know, I guess AI gets all sort of lumped into the same bucket in Hollywood, but I feel like there are distinctions.
You know, he's no Martin Scorsese, but Darren Aronofsky, who people love, you know, he's behind movies that you may have seen, like Noah or The Whale or many years ago, Requiem for a Dream, Pi. I think he made a fully AI movie, right? Did anyone see it? Did anyone like it? Well, Aronofsky is a fascinating case.
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