Netflix's 'The Mosquito Bowl' adapts WWII football game, set for 2026 release

The dream team is collaborating once again.

Buzz Bissinger, author of The New York Times bestselling book Friday Night Lights, and Peter Berg, director of its subsequent film adaptation, are reuniting to bring the true story of The Mosquito Bowl to the screen. The event saw 65 Marines from the 4th and 29th regiments of the 6th Marine Division face off on a makeshift football field on Guadalcanal before being shipped off to Okinawa.

Based on Bissinger’s 2022 book The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II, the film follows four of America’s top college football stars who traded a pigskin for an M1 Garand.

Cast and Crew

Netflix released the official teaser trailer on Wednesday, featuring:

• Nicholas Galitzine (The Idea of You) as John McLaughry
• Bill Skarsgård (It) as Bob Bauman
• Ray Nicholson (Smile 2) as Tony Butkovich
• Tom Francis (Broadway’s Sunset Boulevard) as Dave Schreiner

Berg, who wrote the adaptation alongside Mark L. Smith, produced the film with Alex Gayner and Brian Grazer for Imagine Entertainment. Grazer and Imagine Entertainment previously collaborated with Berg on Friday Night Lights. Ezra Emanuel serves as executive producer.

The Story Behind the Game

As December 1944 passed on Guadalcanal, the island was filled with rumors of where and when the Marines would ship out. It also became home to lively trash talk.

Relief from daily drudgery came over sips of beer and the promise that the “29th would kick the 4th’s ass if there was ever a football game between the two,” Bissinger writes.

That promise quickly took shape into an all-American sporting event — thousands of miles from home.

The Players

According to Bissinger, these men were not run-of-the-mill former collegiate football players. Within the 29th regiment alone came:

• An All-American running back from Purdue who had set a scoring record in the Big Ten
• An All-Missouri Valley Conference end
• Starters from Cornell, Notre Dame, Illinois, and Duquesne
• Five former captains, including from Notre Dame, Illinois, and Purdue

The 4th regiment was equally formidable, boasting:

• A two-time All-American wide receiver from Wisconsin
• An All-American center from the University of California
• An Ivy Leaguer who had started with the New York Giants
• Starters from Wisconsin, Michigan State, Fordham, Montana, and Ohio Northern

The Game

On December 24, 1944, the 65 Marines strode onto a “field” made of dirt, pebbles, and shards of sharp coral, wearing cut-off dungarees and T-shirts with numbers stenciled on the front. Roughly 1,500 Marines surrounded the field, with a broadcast on the Guadalcanal-based Mosquito Network going out to various Navy and Marine units fighting across the Pacific. According to Bissinger, the score was occasionally flashed to destroyers at sea.

Tragically, it would be the last game many of the footballers-turned-Marines would play. Fifteen of the 65 players who suited up for The Mosquito Bowl were killed during the Typhoon of Steel.

Release Dates

The film is set to hit theaters on October 30 and premiere on Netflix on November 25.

Claire Barrett is an editor and military history correspondent for Military Times. She is also a World War II researcher with an affinity for Sir Winston Churchill and Michigan football.