Superhero movie buffs still have a little over a year before the Man of Steel hits the theaters. But Zack Snyder isn’t the first (or the last) to try to take on the Kryptonian. I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to forget Bryan Singer’s 2006 flop “Superman Returns.” In fact, in the mid-’90s, Tim Burton, coming off the success of the first two Batman films, was given the opportunity to reimagine DC Comics’ other iconic character with a project called “Superman Lives.”
But the film never made it past pre-production, with some blaming the casting of Nicolas Cage as Clark Kent as a factor in its failure. However, that hasn’t stopped fans from speculating what a Cage-ian Superman would have been like. Some $30 million was spent and not a single frame was shot. Adding to the debacle was this somewhat bizarre costume that was created for Cage. The following photos, from EdgeFX and After Dark Productions, show the Superman that might have been. Sometimes it’s good that a film gets shelved. This may be one of those times.
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The costume was to feature various layers that would be molded to Cage’s body. As Superman “powered up,” different layers would be applied. It’s unknown what stages these different layers connoted, but we’d have to guess the early stuff.
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Besides the base layers, other elements were attached that included fiber optic cables and LEDs, allowing parts of Superman’s body to light up when he became stronger or weaker. The script included Brainiac’s plot to obscure the sun, Superman’s life source.
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Superman’s costume would have varied drastically from the traditional underwear-over-tights version, for better or worse. EdgeFX had also started work on costume ideas for Superman’s arch foe, Doomsday. These are production sketches that never made it to the modeling stage.