See Nicolas Cage as Superman in Rare Test Footage for 'Superman Lives'

Here’s some behind-the-scenes Superman footage that’s truly from Bizarro World. In the late 1990s, director Tim Burton and screenwriter Kevin Smith collaborated on a new Superman film, Superman Lives, set to star Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel. The movie fell apart before it reached production, but this rare costume test clip (which premiered on Hero Complex) gives us a sense of what Cage’s Superman might have been. Watch it above!

The clip comes courtesy of director Jon Schnepp’s documentary The Death of ‘Superman Lives’: What Happened?, which explores why Burton’s Superman movie never got off the ground. (We first caught a glimpse of Cage’s alterna-world Man of Steel in the doc’s trailer.) As the footage shows, Burton’s visual idea of Superman was radically different than what we’ve come to expect: a lean, long-haired hero, costumed in skintight metallic blue. As Cage poses for the first time in his super-suit, the enthusiasm of Burton, Cage, and costume designer Colleen Atwood is contagious. As Atwood said in an early trailer for The Death of ‘Superman Lives,’ “It’s the one costume I’ve never gotten to really make that I’ve always thought it would have been amazing.”

The documentary, which features interviews with most of the behind-the-scenes players from Superman Lives, is available beginning July 9 through the official website or at San Diego Comic-Con.