‘Friday Night Lights’ author and film director reteaming on new football movie
Two of the main creatives behind the 2004 “Friday Night Lights” film adaptation are reuniting on another football story.
Production began this week on “The Mosquito Bowl” in Queensland, Australia, according to Netflix. The film is an adaptation of author Buzz Bissinger’s 2022 book “The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II.”
“The Mosquito Bowl” is being written and directed by Peter Berg, who adapted Bissinger’s 1990 book, “Friday Night Lights,” for the big screen.
As many Texans are likely well aware, “Friday Night Lights” follows a season in the life of the Permian Panthers high school football team in Odessa in the late 1980s. Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Britton, Tim McGraw and more starred in the film adaptation.
Berg also developed and produced a television adaptation of “Friday Night Lights” that ran for five seasons, from 2006 to 2011.
More on ‘The Mosquito Bowl’ movie
While “Friday Night Lights” is set in the world of high school football, “The Mosquito Bowl” makes the jump to the collegiate level.
The film is based on the true story of four top college football stars from Brown, Wisconsin and Notre Dame who enlisted in the Marines following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“As [the men] prepare for the brutal invasion of Okinawa, they participate in a legendary game featuring some of the greatest players in history — a game that, for many, will be their last,” according to Netflix.
The film stars Nicholas Galitzine (”The Idea of You”), Bill Skarsgård (”Nosferatu”), Ray Nicholson (”Smile 2”) and Tom Francis (”You” season 5). Sports analyst and former NFL punter Pat McAfee is also in the cast as a drill instructor.
No release date has been set for the film, although it will likely premiere in 2026.
In real life, and within a matter of months, 15 of the 65 players in “The Mosquito Bowl” would be killed at Okinawa. This is the largest number of American athletes to die in a single battle.
“’The Mosquito Bowl’ is the story of these brave and beautiful young men, those who survived and those who did not. It is the story of the families and the landscape that shaped them. It is a story of a far more innocent time in both college athletics and the life of the country, and of the loss of that innocence,” according to a description of Bissinger’s book.
This story was originally published August 29, 2025 at 2:14 PM.
