designed by Kevin Nowlan. He shared character designer duties on Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League with James Tucker. The 2008 project Batman: Gotham Knight is a departure from the "Timmverse" style, with Timm in a producer role collaborating with Japanese animators on a direct-to-DVD anthology that takes place between the live-action Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) films. In 2013, following the release of The Dark Knight Returns animated feature, Timm stepped down as DC animation supervising producer; James Tucker was named as his replacement. Timm still works at Warner Brothers, and executive produced the DC Universe Original Animated Movies Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015) and Batman: The Killing Joke (2016), and series Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles (2015). He was a writer and executive producer for Batman and Harley Quinn (2017). Timm worked with Man of Steel director Zack Snyder in creating a 75th anniversary short of Superman in 2013. In 2014, he released Batman: Strange Days, an animated short celebrating the 75th anniversary of Batman and an homage to one of Hugo Strange's first appearances in the comic books. During DC FanDome 2021, Timm was announced to be executive producing a new Batman animated series titled Batman: Caped Crusader alongside J. J. Abrams and Matt Reeves. Comparing the new series to Batman: The Animated Series, Timm stated, "There were certain limitations on what we could do in terms of adult content; in terms of violence and adult themes. My idea is basically to say, 'OK, it's 1990 again, I get to do what I want to do this time, and I got JJ and Matt backing me up.'" Acting Timm has played several characters in the animated series he has been involved in. His cameos include the 1992 episode of Batman: The Animated Series, "Beware the Gray Ghost", playing the toy shop owner, as himself in the 1997 episode of The New Batman Adventures, "Holiday Knights", and as the leader of the Jokerz gang in Batman Beyond, which he joked he did under duress and was "Emmy Award-winning material". He subsequently appeared in an animated form in the 2009 episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, "Legends of the Dark Mite", in a comic book convention parody scene, in which he wore Joker's costume, alongside Paul Dini in Harley Quinn's costume. He played a guard in the 2000 direct-to-video animated film