11-17-00 Paramount Announces "Star Trek: X" Writer Paramount Pictures this week formally announced screenwriter John Logan as the person to pen the tenth installment in the Star Trek motion picture series. Logan, who co-wrote one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, “Gladiator,” with David H. Franzoni and William Nicholson, also recently scored with the screenplay (based on his story) for director Oliver Stone’s pro football drama “Any Given Sunday.” Other recent Logan projects include the Golden Globe winning HBO movie “RKO 281,” a dramatization on the making of Orson Wells’ “Citizen Kane.” Currently, Logan is working on a screenplay based on the life of billionaire eccentric Howard Hughes for acclaimed director Michael Mann, as well as an updated version of the H.G. Wells classic “The Time Machine.” An accomplished playwright as well, Logan wrote “Never the Summer,” which premiered in Chicago in 1985 and opened in London’s West End in 1990. The play also received the New York Outer Critics Circle Award for an Off-Broadway Play in 1998. Logan’s other plays include “Hauptmann,” “Riverview,” “The View From Golgotha” and “Speaking in Tongues.” Sherry Lansing, Chairman of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, commented on Logan’s qualifications: “John is an immensely talented writer with the rare ability to combine drama and action without sacrificing one for the other. I am thrilled that he is on board.” Emmy Award-winning producer Rick Berman will produce the newest Star Trek film. Berman has produced the last three Star Trek films; “Star Trek Generations,” “Star Trek: First Contact” and “Star Trek: Insurrection.” Longtime Star Trek cast members Patrick Stewart (“Captain Jean-Luc Picard”) and Brent Spiner (“Data”) will once again reprise their roles for the new movie. The Star Trek film series is one of the most successful of all time. Since debuting in 1979 with “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” the film series has grossed more than $1 billion in worldwide box office receipts. from startrek.com.