"The Superhero Franchise: Where Traditional Movie Stardom Goes to Die"

"Right now, stars are beating one another silly in “Captain America: Civil War”: It’s Robert Downey Jr. versus Chris Evans versus Scarlett Johansson versus Paul Rudd versus Jeremy Renner versus Don Cheadle. So it went in the “Avengers” movies, a bunch of X-Men films (including “Apocalypse,” opening Friday, May 27), and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”

And I can’t say that any of the actors look happy. The entire point of “Civil War” is that infighting sucks. All the long-faced stoicism suggests that this is miserable work. And those stars have a lot of company: Ben Affleck, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence all play comic-book combatants the way Bruce Willis moped all over “The Sixth Sense.” At least he had an excuse. The comic-book franchise is where traditional movie stardom is going to die."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/movies/in-x-men-apocalypse-and-captain-america-superheroes-versus-movie-stars.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-5&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region

Interesting. There is something about the endlessness of the sequels.