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MrBeast's 10-Hour Mall Manhunt: 100 Subscribers, $10,000 Each, and a Mounting Bill

MrBeast ミスタービースト · ▶ 12:02 · 8 min read
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Overview

The premise of the video is simple. MrBeast (Jimmy) gave 100 of his subscribers $10,000 each, rented what he calls "one of the largest malls in the world," and locked them inside. For the next 10 hours, he and his crew hunt them. Anyone found hands the $10,000 back. Anyone still hidden when morning comes keeps it. The rest of the video follows how he tried to shrink his losses: recruiting more hunters, calling in a SWAT team, and offering new incentives as his crew grew tired.

8 min read
0:12

Opening Hours: Hiding Spots and Honesty Tests

Several contestants say they had never been in the mall before and describe it as massive. The hunters head straight for places they suspect are occupied. One of them is sure he saw someone at Lego Land. The first person found says their parents had told them "not to be the first person out." Each eliminated contestant is "transformed into a mannequin," meaning they are posed as a mannequin in a display that grows through the video.

To cover more ground, Jimmy sends Chandler and Karl to Toys R Us while he checks the ice rink. There he finds a vending machine sitting "suspiciously far off the wall" with a ladder behind it leading into the ceiling. He says that anyone who climbed up there deserves to win the 10 grand.

The Toys R Us search turns into a test of contestants' honesty. One found contestant is asked whether anyone else is hiding in the store and answers "yes," which draws the reaction "his morals are shot." Behind some curtains the hunters find another contestant, then spot "another blue shirt" nearby. Jimmy notes he "just saved another $20,000." Another contestant, asked if they are alone, says yes, and is immediately caught out because someone else is hiding right there. The video also gives the stakes from the contestants' side. One calls themself "a super broke college student" for whom the money "would actually change my life." Another says 10 grand would mean a lot for their family as well.

2:07

Bringing in Backup

Three hours in, Jimmy says he has found only seven people and needs help. He calls in Sapnap and Marques Brownlee to search the mall's ski resort, which he says he has no time for. They find a contestant who had built a small fort, and one of them calls it "a genuinely good idea." Meanwhile Nolan checks the trash cans.

Karl and Chandler are sent to the water park and announce they will check every water slide twice. The footage shows them mostly riding the slides. When Jimmy phones to ask what they are doing, they tell him they are at the water park and he replies, "I trust you." Later, a contestant running from Nolan runs straight into Chandler and Karl. One of them, still barefoot and wet, chases the contestant around a corner and ends up calling them "fast."

With just under six hours left, Jimmy reports 78 people still to find. The hunters keep catching people. A briefcase left in the open leads them to a contestant who has fallen asleep. Tareq's pile of giant stuffed animals gets searched, and Jimmy spots a zebra blanket "oddly stretched out in the shape of a human," which turns out to hide a contestant. Chandler and Karl are next seen playing mini golf, and Jimmy complains they are not searching. The two of them then catch someone "right outside the box," and one of the eliminated contestants jokes that they are glad the pair got to play putt-putt "while making me lose."

5:14

The SWAT Team and the Half-Money Twist

At 37 people caught, Jimmy says the number "might sound great," but he still has $630,000 on the line. He has scheduled a SWAT team to arrive at exactly 5:00 AM. He also reveals that the mall contains an entire theme park that nobody has searched yet. He then gives the team a twist they had not been told about: for every person they find, they keep half of that person's money.

The team splits up, with two members covering one area and three circling the whole mall. One member runs a thermal drone and radios hiding positions to the others: someone under the stairs by the exit, someone behind the escalators, two behind a brown mat. The contestants they pull out had held out a long time. One had been hiding "the whole time." Another had been in place "about five hours." Jimmy says the team found 10 people faster than he had found about two. He pays them half as promised and then goes further, giving each member a full briefcase of $10,000. At least one contestant survived the sweep and guesses "the drone didn't see me."

6:39

Jack Black Flushes People Out

Jimmy says that even with the SWAT team there is too much area to search, so he needs to get contestants out into the open. He asks "our friend, Jack Black" to record an announcement played over every speaker in the mall. It tells contestants that Jimmy is closing the water park and that they had better find new hiding places if they want the money.

The contestants react in different ways. One decides to stay put for the rest of the night. Another says their next mission is simply to go pee. Others move under a stage, confident they will be safe there. One hunter insists he just saw someone who then vanished, but nobody is found.

7:30

7:00 AM: Boats for the Moms

By 7:00 AM, 53 contestants remain. Jimmy says he expected his crew to lose motivation as the night went on, so he makes a new offer: if they get the number below 30, he will buy all their mothers a boat. He explains the math. Getting under 30 saves him $230,000, and he can find a nice boat for about $15,000 each, so he still comes out ahead. According to Jimmy, the boats worked as motivation and the crew began finding many more people.

With a little over two hours left, one contestant describes being "beyond delirious" but believes they have outsmarted Jimmy. Nolan dresses as an old man and janitor and searches a candy store. He reasons that Jimmy had already checked there "but Jimmy's not good at it," and he finds someone almost immediately. Another contestant is caught on the way to the bathroom. After another round of questioning a person who insists no one else is there, the crew scans the area and finds someone anyway. Jimmy counts more than 70 mannequins, meaning the goal is met and every crew member's mother gets a new boat.

9:54

The Final Stretch in an Open Mall

Chandler and Karl go shopping at It'Sugar, joking about buying shirts for a girlfriend, Charleston Chews, and even the shelf. The shopping trip leads them to someone who, in their words, "really almost won."

With 30 minutes left, the mall opens to the public, and Jimmy says he still has $230,000 to recover. He asks shoppers whether they have seen anyone in blue jumpsuits. At one point he learns two people are hiding in a spot and offers someone a briefcase to hand them over, and a contestant objects that this would mean "stealing it from somebody else." One person later refuses to give someone up for 10 grand.

Jimmy then changes course himself. With less than 20 minutes left, he spots someone and says he will "act like I can't see," telling them they might want to run. He explains that he would feel terrible taking $10,000 from someone in the last 15 minutes of the challenge.

Some contestants worry about last-minute twists. Others say they would cry if eliminated so close to the end. When the timer reaches zero, Jimmy tells the survivors over the speakers that anyone still in has won $10,000 in cash. One contestant was found at the very end, and Jimmy tells them they "lasted one second extra" and won. One winner says their kids are going to have a real vacation.

Jimmy's closing estimate is that he had a million dollars at risk and ended up spending about half a million, including all the other money given away, "which I can live with."

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