Football Before Okinawa, Peter Berg’s The Mosquito Bowl Gets Its World Premiere at the TCL Chinese

The Mosquito Bowl, Peter Berg’s World War II drama starring Nicholas Galitzine and Bill Skarsgård, has its world premiere at AFI Fest at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Thursday, October 22, at 7:30 p.m.

The red carpet on Hollywood Boulevard turns to wartime football tonight. The AFI Fest film page marks the screening as a world premiere and files it under Red Carpet Premieres. It does not name any guests or a post-screening conversation, so who walks the carpet has not been announced. Check with the festival before you go.

What The Mosquito Bowl Is About

The Mosquito Bowl follows four college football stars who enlist in the Marines after Pearl Harbor and are thrust into the violence of World War II. AFI says the film is based on Buzz Bissinger’s book The Mosquito Bowl, A Game of Life and Death in World War II.

The title refers to a real game. What’s on Netflix quotes a production synopsis that sets it “on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.” The regiments were training for the invasion of Okinawa, and the synopsis says their ranks held a deep pool of college football talent. The game was played on Guadalcanal. “Within a matter of months, 15 of the 65 players in ‘The Mosquito Bowl’ would be killed at Okinawa,” the synopsis reads.

Writing about the trailer, OutKick reported that the game “famously featured first round pick Tony Butkovich, who chose to join the Marines over playing in the NFL.” He was later killed in action in the Pacific, the outlet added. Ray Nicholson plays him.

Who Is in the Cast

Galitzine plays John McLaughry and Skarsgård plays Bob Baumann, according to AFI. Nicholson is Butkovich and Tom Francis is David Schreiner. Netflix’s own title page lists the same four along with Brent Comer and Dominic Bogart. What’s on Netflix adds the former NFL punter and sports analyst Pat McAfee to the cast and says the film is Nicholson’s first Netflix project.

Berg directed and wrote the script with Mark L. Smith. AFI’s biography credits him with Friday Night Lights, Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon, and says he will next direct and co-write Paramount’s live-action Call of Duty film. Berg and Brian Grazer are among the producers, and Bissinger is an executive producer. The band Explosions in the Sky is credited with the music. The film runs 126 minutes.

Where It Sits in the Festival

AFI Fest runs October 21 to 25 at the TCL Chinese Theatres for its 40th edition. “AFI rolls out the red carpet for some of the biggest films of the festival,” the institute wrote in its lineup announcement. The Mosquito Bowl shares that strand with Wildwood, which opened the festival on Wednesday, and with I Play Rocky, Ray Gunn and the closing film, Being Heumann.

The same building has a full week. Pedro Pascal is booked for a Behemoth! conversation on Friday, and Quentin Tarantino has his own evening on the schedule.

When It Reaches Theaters and Netflix

The film opens in theaters on October 30, AFI says. Netflix’s title page lists the film but no date. Several outlets report that it streams on Netflix on Wednesday, November 25. The Playlist, citing Variety, reported a brief theatrical window from October 30 before the film “premieres exclusively on Netflix on November 25.” OutKick gives the same two dates. What’s on Netflix gives November 26 in one line and November 25 in another, so November 25 is the date most reports agree on.

For Los Angeles the premiere is a chance to see a Netflix war film on a Hollywood screen more than a month before it reaches the service.

Practical Details

The Mosquito Bowl screens Thursday, October 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The running time is 126 minutes. AFI’s film page does not list prices and points to its tickets and passes pages at fest.afi.com.