Netflix Drops First Teaser for “The Mosquito Bowl,” Peter Berg’s WWII Football Epic

Netflix has released the teaser art and trailer for ‘The Mosquito Bowl’, a World War II drama directed by Peter Berg and starring four of America’s top college football stars, who enlist as Marines after Pearl Harbor.

The movie chronicles the journey of four of America’s greatest college football players who give up their celebrity to fight as Marines. They get ready for the bloody assault on Okinawa by playing the famous Mosquito Bowl, one of the best games in football history—a game that for some of them is their last.

Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, Tom Francis, Brent Comer, Dominic Bogart. Galitzine plays Brown University’s John McLaughry, who was the quarterback, while Skarsgård plays Bob Baumann from Wisconsin. Nicholson plays Tony Butkovich, a Purdue standout, while Francis plays David Schreiner of Wisconsin. Stacy Clausen and Pat McAfee also feature in the movie.

Peter Berg writes the movie’s script with Mark L. Smith, based on Buzz Bissinger’s 2022 non-fiction book The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II. Bissinger, who won the Pulitzer Prize, also wrote the original Friday Night Lights novel that Berg adapted into the 2004 football drama film and television series. He is an executive producer of the film.

Berg produced the movie for Film 44, with Brian Grazer for Imagine Entertainment and Alex Gayner. Ezra Emanuel, Bissinger, and Jeb Brody are the executive producers.

The original Mosquito Bowl game took place on Christmas Eve 1944, featuring 4th and 29th Marine regiments on Guadalcanal. It featured one of the greatest collections of football talent of its era, including former All-Americans and team captains of Brown, Notre Dame, and Wisconsin, and nearly 20 football players who were either drafted or played in the NFL.

They played in cut-off dungarees and field shoes, on a dirt, pebble, and coral field dug from the 29th Regiment’s parade grounds. More than 1,500 Marines surrounded the sidelines. The game ended tied at zero to zero. Sixteen of the 65 players died in the Battle of Okinawa.

“I’m interested in love and compassion and human connection existing within these very traumatic environments,” Berg explained.

“It’s intensity meeting emotion, and that’s where I tend to feel the most engaged,” Galitzine said. The production leaned heavily on practical effects and limited use of stunt doubles, with explosives detonating a few feet from the actors and flames catching on them at points. “I’ve never experienced this kind of immersion before in my career,” he said.

The movie premieres in select AMC theaters and other locations nationwide on October 30 for awards consideration. This is the first time since K-pop Demon Hunters that AMC has partnered with Netflix.

The movie is scheduled to start streaming on Netflix on November 25.