This weekend, despite all the noise about how much Amazon’s Melania documentary was going to make, the battle for the top spot at the box office came down to two new releases. In one corner, there was Send Help, the new film from Sam Raimi, which stars Rachel McAdams as an underappreciated employee and Dylan O’Brien as her nepo baby boss who find themselves stuck together on a deserted island following a plane crash. In the other, Iron Lung, Mark Fischbach’s (a.k.a. the YouTuber Markiplier) adaptation of the horror video game of the same name, which he wrote, directed, starred in, and edited.
In the end, domestically, it was quite close: Deadline reported that Send Help won out at $20 million to Iron Lung‘s $17.8 million, with the potential for the former to fall a bit closer, as rival studio estimates came in slightly below Disney’s figure. Internationally, Raimi’s movie had a more clearcut victory, $28.1 million against $21.7 million (Deadline) – only natural, considering Iron Lung‘s global rollout was much more limited. But in reality, this result was a win for both films, and the fact that they were the competitors at all makes us winners.
Send Help & Iron Lung Are Two Different Reasons To Have Hope For Movies
The film industry has had a rough go of it lately, and the theatrical exhibition industry even more so. What people will actually leave their homes to see remains the most pressing question, and because it’s proven frustratingly difficult to answer, studios load their slates with familiarity to try and secure their returns as much as possible. The creative results of doing things this way, however, can be… mixed.
At the same time, anything that isn’t part of an established franchise gets treated like the fate of every movie of its kind is in its hands, even if it’s not built to withstand that kind of pressure. It’s why people like me who are deeply invested in the artform can sometimes get overly worked up about whether something performs. If this one tanks, the thinking goes, Hollywood might just stop making these for theaters entirely.
That’s what makes Send Help‘s #1 finish so encouraging. This is an original, R-rated, mid-budget, studio genre movie, made with distinctive style by an auteur filmmaker and being sold by highlighting its stars. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’d want more of. Horror is considered reliable in part because of how cheaply it can be made and still find success, but as Weapons and Sinners showed last year, there’s value in spending more on these films. After the excellent 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple struggled on a $63 million budget, Send Help starting strong on a $40 million budget is the perfect rebound.
Iron Lung, meanwhile, wasn’t made by the studios – more importantly, it wasn’t released by them, either. Markiplier self-funded this project, and rather than partner with Hollywood to distribute it (or with theater chains directly, as some recent concert movies have done), he hired an independent booking agency to deal with exhibitors. Then, he relied on his YouTube-created fandom to advocate for the film’s release, theater-by-theater.
As people called their local cinemas and jumped on pre-sales, more and more theaters booked Iron Lung. What started as a 60-theater release grew to over 3000, and a $3 million film earned more than seven times that in just one weekend. 50% of that box office belongs to the theaters, but the other 50% belongs just to the filmmaker.
Not just anyone can pull that off, of course, but there’s an important lesson here nonetheless: If you build the audience, the theaters will come. Given how exhibitors are always pushing for Hollywood to make more films, and more varied films, it’s important that the industry knows this kind of thing is possible.
So, even if Melania is dominating the headlines, this was still a great week for movies. Hopefully people remember to celebrate these two wins enough that someone will think to follow their example.
