Now that he's forayed into the future with "Star Trek: Nemesis" and "The Time Machine," screenwriter John Logan is heading back into the past with two wartime movies that he has been hired to write, one of which will be directed by Steven Spielberg.

The Oscar-nominated co-writer of "Gladiator" has made a deal with DreamWorks SKG to write two more high-profile historical epics. The Spielberg picture will be a biography of Abraham Lincoln focusing on how the 16th U.S. president steered the country through the Civil War, according to Daily Variety. (As another, albeit off-handed, connection to Star Trek, Lincoln was a hero of Captain Kirk's who appeared in the Original Series episode "The Savage Curtain.") Logan is also scripting another true story taking place during World War II, in which a team of Allied commandos fighting the Germans on a Greek island form an unlikely alliance with a group of Eastern Orthodox monks.

Logan wrote the screenplay for the tenth Star Trek feature film based on an original story conceived by himself, Brent Spiner and Rick Berman. "Nemesis" is currently in production at Paramount Studios and is slated for a 2002 release. He also penned the script for the DreamWorks/Warner Bros. co-production of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" which is scheduled for release in March 2002.

According to Variety, the busy Logan also wrote an animated film for DreamWorks, "Sinbad," which is currently in production, and yet another historical epic, "The Last Samurai," about the modernization of Japan, for Warner Bros. He has also written a biopic about Howard Hughes to star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Logan (along with two co-writers) received a Best Screenplay nomination at the Academy Awards earlier this year for "Gladiator," and while he didn't take home that trophy, the movie did win Best Picture for the year.