Reel TV: 'Enemy of the State' Is Getting a Sequel

Enemy of the State is the most perfect ’90s thriller. That’s not to say it’s the best thriller of the ’90s, just that it brings together pretty much everything that was big at the time. It had a hot, A-list star (Will Smith), an in-demand director (Tony Scott). It had a stacked ensemble cast that included Regina King, Barry Pepper, Jason Lee, Jake Busey and even Jack Black. It was simultaneously a legal thriller, a murder mystery, a race against time, and a twisty government conspiracy cover up. And, most importantly, it had an obsession with emerging technologies and a distrust of the internet and personal surveillance.

Enemy of the State is basically if The Fugitive, The Net, Hackers and a non-supernatural episode of The X-Files all rolled in to one. It is maximum ’90s-ness, and we mean that in the best way. And now it’s getting a sequel.

Kind of.

Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original movie, is behind a new Enemy of the State TV show set decades after the original. Don’t expect Will Smith to return, though. This is shaping up to be more of a spiritual sequel. Instead of being about a normal guy who comes into possession of some highly classified materials, this time it’s keeping things topical with an NSA employee who goes on the run after the government suspects them of leaking highly classified documents. 

We’re not entirely sure how you make that premise last for multiple seasons, as is usually the goal with a TV show. One would think that the main character can’t stay on the run forever. But that’s for writer Morgan Davis Foehl, who also wrote the ill-received but similarly topic hacker thriller Blackhat, to figure out. 

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