The film stars Nicholas Hoult, Logan Marshall-Green, Henry Cavill, Glen Powell, Tommy Flanagan, Beau Knapp, and Neil Brown Jr.

The film centers on Matt Ocre, a young soldier in the United States Army, who is tasked with restoring water to a village in Iraq.

At the beginning of the 2003 Iraq War, Private Matt Ocre, a young civil affairs soldier with the Army Reserve slams his hand in the door of a Humvee in an attempt to get sent home.

The film then skips forward to some time after the battle, when Ocre's squad is tasked with repairing a broken water system in the dangerous village of Baqubah.

Syverson introduces them to their interpreter and explains that they are to travel to the pump station and fill a tanker with water to bring back to the village every day.

One morning, none of the Iraqis show up to work and the squad returns to the village, where they find the administrator's body burned and tied to a stake in the schoolyard.

However, soon after, the pump station is hit by an improvised explosive device brought by one of the workers in a suicide bombing, destroying all of the work done by the group and killing several Americans and Iraqis.

Chris Roessner's script Sand Castle, based on his own experience as a machine gunner in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, appeared among the 2012 unproduced Black List screenplays.

[1][2] On March 13, 2014, it was announced that Nicholas Hoult would lead the cast of the Iraq war drama to play the role of Matt Ocre, a young machine gunner.

[1] Commercial director Seb Edwards was hired to direct the film centered on Sergeant Harper, the leader of a platoon, and one of his soldiers, Ocre.

[6] On October 26, 2015 The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Logan Marshall-Green had replaced Evans for his role of Sergeant Harper, the leader of a platoon.