Netflix will release The Mosquito Bowl on November 25, following a theatrical run in select cinemas beginning October 30. Directed by Peter Berg, the film adapts Buzz Bissinger’s 2022 nonfiction book The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II and follows four prominent college football players who enlist in the Marines after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Nicholas Galitzine plays John McLaughry, Bill Skarsgård portrays Bob Baumann, Ray Nicholson takes on the role of Tony Butkovich, and Tom Francis appears as David Schreiner. The cast also includes Brent Comer and Dominic Bogart.
The story follows the four athletes as they leave promising football careers behind and enter military service during World War II. Their experiences lead toward the invasion of Okinawa and a football game that brought together several notable players before battle. For many of the men involved, it became the final game they would play.
Berg adapted the screenplay with Mark L. Smith and approached the production with a focus on the experiences of the real Marines represented in the story. “This is very much a reality-based film,” Berg said, describing the project as an effort to honor Marines who lost their lives in 1944 and 1945.
Each central character enters the story from a different football background. McLaughry played quarterback for Brown University under his father’s coaching. Baumann played for the University of Wisconsin and brings an energetic, confrontational personality to both football and military life.
Nicholson’s Tony Butkovich played for Purdue, where he established records and earned recognition as one of the era’s leading offensive players. Francis portrays Schreiner, another University of Wisconsin player, whose measured approach contrasts with Baumann’s personality.
The actors underwent intensive preparation for the production. Galitzine described Berg’s filmmaking approach as highly immersive, with the cast performing much of the physical work themselves and experiencing explosions, fire and other practical elements at close range.
That preparation also helped create a connection among the four leads. Skarsgård compared the group’s bond to the camaraderie found in football and the Marine Corps, explaining that the actors developed their own sense of brotherhood during the production.
The Mosquito Bowl also reunites Berg and Bissinger creatively. Bissinger wrote Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream, which Berg adapted into a 2004 film before developing the material further for the television series that premiered in 2006.
Production took place in Australia, including Queensland and northern New South Wales. The locations represented Marine training areas and parts of the Pacific Theater. Francis joined the project after his Tony-nominated Broadway performance in Sunset Boulevard, and The Mosquito Bowl marked his first film role.
Berg produces the film through Film 44 alongside Brian Grazer for Imagine Entertainment and Alex Gayner. Ezra Emanuel, Buzz Bissinger and Jeb Brody serve as executive producers. The Mosquito Bowl opens in select theaters on October 30 before arriving on Netflix on November 25.
