The Walking Dead's Robert Kirkman is working on the Transformers movies now

According to Deadline, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has signed on to help shape the future of the Transformers movie franchise.

Back in March, Paramount Pictures unveiled plans to follow Disney and Warner Bros. into the territory of interconnected blockbuster universes, and plans to do it with their own toy-centric transplant to big screen cinema: Transformers. Writer/director Akiva Goldsman, Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura were now in charge of putting together a "writers' room" of folks to shape the sequels and spinoffs, and now we know who's sitting around that table.

So far Paramount has collected the talents of Robert Kirkman, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man, Punisher: War Zone), Zak Penn (X-Men 2, Elektra, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Incredible Hulk) and Jeff Pinkner (Alias, Lost, Fringe, The Amazing Spider-Man 2), with "more writers to be added."

It's a list that includes a lot of folks cribbed from the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not to mentioned licensed Marvel efforts from studios other than Marvel Entertainment. It's also a list with, Kirkman not withstanding, as many licensed adaptation hits as there are notorious duds like X-Men: The Last Stand, Elektra and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

But with the Transformers franchise's notoriety for box office success in the face of critical disdain, you've got to wonder how much that'll matter.