Yahoo Lifestyle Peter Berg’s Film 44 Reups Netflix Deal, Sets ‘Mosquito Bowl’ As First Film Under New Pact Reuniting With Brian Grazer
EXCLUSIVE: Peter Berg’s Film 44 has renewed it creative partnership with Netflix to produce and direct live-action films and series. The news follows the success of Berg’s No. 1 limited series American Primeval, which spent four weeks on the Netflix Global Top 10 TV (English) and racked up 35.1 million views following its January debut.
Film 44’s Painkiller, the last limited series for Netflix directed by Berg, spent five weeks on the streamer’s Global Top 10 TV List (English) in 2023, accumulating 29.1M views.
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The next project under the partnership is the feature adaptation of Buzz Bissinger’s New York Times bestseller The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II. Berg, who co-wrote the script with Mark L. Smith, will direct and is producing alongside Brian Grazer at Imagine and Alex Gayner. The story is set after the attack on Pearl Harbor when four of America’s top college football stars set their fame aside to enlist in the Marines. As they prepare for the brutal invasion of Okinawa, they’ll play in a legendary game featuring some of the greatest players in history – a game that, for many, will be the last they ever play.
A casting search is under way to find the film’s four leads. Ezra Emanuel will exec produce.
The Mosquito Bowl reunites Grazer and Berg, who had previously worked together on the hit film Friday Night Lights, another adaptation based on a Bissinger classic that redefined the sports movie and would ultimately lead to one of the great TV dramas of this century, which Berg and Grazer co-created with Jason Katims. The Friday Night Lights series helped launch the careers of such rising stars as Taylor Kitsch, Jesse Plemons and Michael B. Jordan. and Grazer and Berg are also working together on a new rebooted Friday Night Lights TV series at Peacock.
“[Netflix chief content officer] Bela [Bajaria] and the entire team at Netflix have been tremendous partners to me, both in film and television,” said Berg. “I cherish this partnership and feel fully supported as I continue on this beautiful creative odyssey. LFG!”
Berg is repped by WME and Hirsch, Wallerstein, Hayum, Matlof and Fishman.
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