Peter Berg Is Turning Football Brotherhood Into a World War II Epic
Photo: Kane Skennar / Netflix
Mark your calendars on us: Netflix is marching The Mosquito Bowl into theaters this fall, and the first look has officially arrived.
Directed by Peter Berg, the upcoming World War II epic stars Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis as four of America’s top college football players who put their promising athletic careers aside after Pearl Harbor, enlist in the Marines and find themselves pulled into the brutal realities of war.
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From the Field to the Pacific
The Mosquito Bowl brings football history and World War II together in one sweeping true-story adaptation. Read the book behind the film and revisit Peter Berg’s hard-hitting screen work.
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The movie is adapted from Pulitzer Prize winner Buzz Bissinger’s 2022 nonfiction book The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II, which tells the story of college football players who joined the military and the remarkable game that brought many of them together before the Battle of Okinawa.
For Berg, the project also creates a full-circle reunion with Bissinger. Bissinger wrote Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream, while Berg directed the 2004 film adaptation and later developed the story for television.
“This is very much a reality-based film,” Berg told Netflix’s Tudum, explaining that the production is honoring the Marines who sacrificed their lives in 1944 and 1945.
Galitzine plays John McLaughry, Skarsgård plays Bob Baumann, Nicholson portrays Tony Butkovich and Francis plays David Schreiner — four athletes whose lives move from college football fields to the Pacific Theater.
Netflix says the actors went through an unusually immersive production process. Galitzine described doing much of the physical work themselves with limited use of stunt doubles, including practical explosions, fire and close-quarters battlefield effects designed to put the cast inside the chaos rather than safely outside it.
The film was shot in Australia, with locations in Queensland and northern New South Wales standing in for Marine training grounds and the Pacific Theater. That gives Berg plenty of room to do what he does best: put men under pressure, strip away the polish and let brotherhood, fear and loyalty do the heavy dramatic lifting.
And yes, with Galitzine and Skarsgård leading the charge, Netflix certainly did not forget the “movie star” portion of its World War II epic. Those two beauts alone would have gotten our attention — but the real-story foundation and Berg’s track record with muscular, boots-on-the-ground drama make this one considerably more interesting than a handsome cast lineup.
The Mosquito Bowl opens in select theaters October 30 before arriving on Netflix November 25, 2026.
Source: Netflix Tudum.
