Netflix's Post-WW2 Sports Movie Reveals First Look At Bill Skarsgård & Nicholas Galitzine As Filming Begins

Netflix has revealed some first-look images from the set of The Mosquito Bowl, starring Bill Skarsgård and Nicholas Galitzine. The Mosquito Bowl will be a World War II movie based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Buzz Bissinger’s book, depicting the true story of top college football players who enlisted in the U.S. Marines after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Mosquito Bowl, which will also star Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis, revolves around the football game played by the Marines just before the invasion of Okinawa. Production began in Queensland, Australia, this month, and Netflix shared the following images of the cast from the set:

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The Mosquito Bowl is co-written, and will be directed and produced by Peter Berg, a director of American Primeval and Friday Night Lights, who has several more projects in the pipeline as a producer. Bissinger’s The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II was a New York Times bestseller when it was published in 2022.

This book delves into the rivalry that formed between the 4th and 29th Marine regiments during World War II over football. This led to the football game on Christmas Eve of 1944, which was both vicious and uplifting ahead of the battle. From the set, director Berg told Netflix:

I’m thrilled to be in Queensland filming The Mosquito Bowl with some of the best crews in the world. The landscapes here are cinematic gold — perfect for bringing this story to life. So far, I’ve crossed paths with two kangaroos and a couple of pythons, and I’m seriously considering casting them! Huge thanks to Screen Queensland for their incredible support in helping make this production possible.

What This Means For The Mosquito Bowl

Bill Skarsgard as Eddie on the phone in Locked

Netflix has ᴀssembled a veritable collection of stars for The Mosquito Bowl, though the movie is a different genre than what they are best known for. The name Bill Skarsgård has become synonymous with horror monsters in recent years, while Galitzine has become a major rising star on the streaming scene through rom-coms Red, White, & Royal Blue and The Idea of You.

Francis is known for small roles in You and the upcoming movie Jay Kelly, while Nicholson appeared in Novocaine and Smile 2. But these actors can all push themselves and excel in a new drama, with no one absolutely dominating the narrative through it being another outing in their preferred genre.

Regardless, Netflix is clearly excited about The Mosquito Bowl, offering audiences sneak peeks long before the movie is completed and collaborating with Screen Queensland for an on-location production that will do justice to the story. The movie currently filming means we will likely see it hit Netflix sometime next year.

Our Take On The Mosquito Bowl

Nicholas Galitzine as Hayes in The Idea of You.

It will be refreshing to see Skarsgård and Galitzine stepping into different roles than usual, though The Mosquito Bowl hopefully lives up to its acclaimed and serious source material. Writers and filmmakers continue to unearth stories from World War II that reveal the good and bad extremes of humanity, and it is vital that the narratives be handled with care.