With a movie, the director's vision, which is a combination of the script and every single other factor in the movie, is the dominant factor. Plays, the script might be the most dominating factor. With a movie, it is commonly said that it takes an "army" of people to make it. The final movie, where all the elements are combined into one recording, that is what is studied. With animated movies, things like art design aren't in the script at all. Every scene transition, the sound effects, the music scored, the camera angles, where people are positioned in a frame, that's stuff not necessarily in the script. Movies are also planned right down to the second, to the frame. Sometimes the director doesn't even write the script, but their vision for every other part of the production is what is attention worthy. People joke about Michael Bay's explosions, J.J Abrhams's lens flares, that's stuff in a director's vision that is not always in the script. It's his use of slow motion, the way he colours his films and such. The script isn't often what people recognise in Zack Snyder. Also a movie script is often just a small part of the movie.įor example, Zack Snyder's films. A movie, often there's just the one recording, with that cast and director and special effects team and costume designer and concept artists etc. A play, the actors change, the directors change, everything changes between productions. I think with movies, everything is "permanent". But by and large, screenplays are even less concerned with appealing to a reader than stage plays are and I think it takes an excellent and particular kind of playwright to craft plays that are engaging to read as it is. The screenplay for Alien for example is amazing to read. That's not to say there aren't beautiful or literary screenplays, because there absolutely are. It's often focused on naturalism and behavior, with the lyricism, metaphor, philosophy, and other qualities often attributed to great pieces of literary work occurring only in limited and deliberate moments. This is generalizing a bit, but cinematic writing also isn't usually the most literary language. Frequently there will be several "scenes" in a row which are just descriptions of camera shots and a few minor actions by a character before cutting to something completely different, without one line of dialogue. They frequently contain a significant amount of technical information regarding the type of camera shot, relevant audio cues, and other miscellany that has little to do with the dialogue directly. Well, this isn't the best answer but, have you ever seen a movie script? Generally speaking, they aren't really conducive to casual reading. I mean, if I had a screenplay for a great film that never got made, like Kubrick's Napoleon, I'd definitely be reading that and trying to imagine the final product just like I do with plays. So it's not that playwriting is some greater art form than screenwriting, but simply that both mediums are just templates and with one we can see the final product and with the other we usually can't, so reading has to suffice. You might be able to find a suitable recording (although most recordings of plays are subpar to actually seeing them live) or there might be a film adaptation (which requires changing the play for the new medium, as even Shakespeare's plays are often altered, even when they try and stick to the text), but these aren't the experiences the playwright intended, which is live in a theatre. It's hard to find a live production of a play. But for most plays, reading is the only option. There's some good comments here but I think they largely miss the main point: Instead of reading the screenplay, I can just watch the film.