A new Netflix movie is putting college football stars on the front lines of World War II, and its latest trailer makes clear that this is no ordinary sports drama.
The red-band trailer for The Mosquito Bowl offers a bloody look at director Peter Berg’s upcoming war film, following four college football stars who put their athletic careers aside to enlist in the Marines after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie opens in select theaters Oct. 30 before arriving on Netflix Nov. 25.
Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis play the four central football players, who are pulled from the world of packed stadiums and college fame into the realities of military training and combat.
The trailer moves quickly from football fields to the Pacific battlefield, showing explosions, gunfire, wounded soldiers, and the brutal conditions awaiting the young men.
This Isn’t Really a Football Movie
The title comes from a legendary football game played by servicemen during World War II, but the film is much bigger than the game itself.
As the trailer shows, the four players enlist with the expectation that they will be serving their country. Their journey eventually takes them toward the Battle of Okinawa, where the realities of war are dramatically different from anything they experienced on a football field.
Netflix describes the film as following the players from their college careers through Marine training and into the Pacific. Berg has emphasized that the movie is ultimately a war story rather than a traditional football movie.
Nicholas Galitzine Leads the Cast
Galitzine plays John McLaughry, a Brown University quarterback who becomes one of the group’s natural leaders. Skarsgård plays Wisconsin star Bob Bauman, while Nicholson portrays Purdue football standout Tony Butkovich. Francis rounds out the quartet as Wisconsin player David Schreiner.
The cast also includes Berg himself, as well as Pat McAfee and a larger ensemble of actors portraying Marines and other figures from the story.
For Francis, who previously appeared on Broadway in Sunset Boulevard, the film marks his first feature-film role. He described the experience as an intense five-month production in Australia.
The Movie Is Based on a True Story
The Mosquito Bowl is based on Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Buzz Bissinger’s 2022 nonfiction book, The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II.
The book chronicles the real college football players who enlisted during World War II and the remarkable game that brought many of them together before the Battle of Okinawa.
That history also gives the movie’s football sequences a darker significance. These weren’t fictional athletes whose biggest challenge was winning a championship. They were young men whose lives were completely transformed by the war.
When Will ‘The Mosquito Bowl’ Be on Netflix?
The Mosquito Bowl opens in select theaters on Oct. 30, 2026.
For anyone who would rather watch it at home, the movie arrives on Netflix on Nov. 25.
