What are the criteria for Dueling Works?

A while back I removed the following example from Trivia.Sonic The Hedgehog 2019:

I removed it because these movies will be released months apart (Detective Pikachu being released in May, and Sonic in November) and have nothing in common, other than both being based on video games.

PrincessPandaTrope messaged me recently and said that they disagree, stating that they both feature photo-realistic animal creatures, and involve a non-human and human teaming up to achieve something. They also used Zootopia and Sing as examples of movies that were released months apart but still count as Dueling Works.

Those comparisons between Pikachu and Sonic sound very superficial to me, but it's that last point that compelled me to make this thread.

What exactly is required for two works to be considered "dueling"?

I've never seen Zootopia or Sing, but from what I've heard, they don't sound very similar either. Zootopia is a Buddy Cop Movie with subtext about racial tensions, and the other is about a theater struggling to remain in business. The World of Funny Animals aspect is all they have in common, a trope that is almost omnipresent in children's movies.

I thought movies had to have something more substantial in common to be considered Dueling Works? Examples:

• Batman v Superman vs Captain America: Civil War (superhero in-fighting)
• Justice League vs Thor: Ragnarok (superhero crossover with emphasis on comedy)
• Deep Impact vs Armageddon (asteroid hitting Earth)

Zootopia is also listed as dueling with Kung Fu Panda 3 and Kubo and the Two Strings, despite again having nothing in common with them other than being an animated children's movie. Kubo especially has nothing in common with Zootopia, since it takes place in feudal Japan and has a human protagonist. Being listed as "dueling" with three separate movies, none of which were released at the same time, seems excessive anyway.

It seems to me that people only consider some movies Dueling Works because they want them to be Dueling Works, not because they actually are.

Edited by Primis on Jan 18th 2019 at 11:30:33 AM

Maybe they fit into Counterpart Comparison more?

"Dueling" means they actually affect each other's reception and sell numbers by the time they're released.

Counterpart Comparison is in TRS and might get scrapped, so I'm wary of listing stuff there. Plus that's for characters, not works.

Sing is generally considered a riff of Zootopia so they're listed as Dueling Works, but they were released months apart. I always saw the criteria as "Being released within a year of one another", but that isn't a must-have for all media. For example, some literature examples are years apart.

Well even if the movies were released months apart, they could still compete against each other in other ways, like for awards.