I'll have my commentary after the jump.  You want to see the full photo now.  It's hilarious.

This photo of Nicolas Cage in a costume test (c. 1997) for Tim Burton's failed "Superman Lives" project just landed online courtesy of timburton.jp [via IGN] and all I can say is I owe whoever put the kibosh on this movie the world's biggest hug.

It's not the expression on Cage's face that gets me.  It's everything else.  I always wondered how they'd make someone as folliclely-impaired as Cage have Superman's hairdo.  The answer: grab a goth wig from Party City.  And the costume?  Holy hell.  If Lex Luthor ever saw that, he'd be too busy laughing his ass off to actually stop Superman (maybe that was the plan all along!).  And yes, you can make a costume entirely out of latex and it works so much better than having Cage actually work out when you can literally sculpt abs.

I'm sure Burton or Cage or someone will issue a statement explaining that this was just one design or it was unfinished or some other excuse which doesn't matter because this thing existed at one point and they thought it was a good idea to take a picture of it.  But whoever did take that picture, THANK YOU.