Back in the late 1990’s, Warner Bros. was working on a Superman movie that was to be written by Kevin Smith and directed by Tim Burton. In a move that caused fan uproar, their choice for the Man of Steel was Nicolas Cage. The film was to be titled ‘Superman Reborn’ or ‘Superman Lives’, which supposedly revolved around the 1992 Death of Superman comic storyline in which Superman battled the villainous Doomsday until they both died in battle.

Back then, various screen tests had been conducted and it had been given a release date of July 4th 1998. However, due to a out of control of budget and the addition of a WB box office failure with Batman & Robin (among other things), the studio decided to scrap
project.

Everyone has speculated since then, about the Superman project that never came to the screen and now, the image above – published by TimBurton.jp, which claims it is a screen test of Nicolas Cage in the Superman costume. Some think it’s a fake, and some believe that it might be a photo of the Superman than never was (Thank Jor-El)

Check out the videos below: The first is footage from the screen test with pics of concept art, the second is more concept art of Braniac and the third is Kevin Smith talking about the project.