Number of words in movies and in books

I don't have empiric data, but my guess (which I hope is an educated one) will be that a book contains more words than a movie.

The reason for that is that a book has to use words to describe the settings, the location of the plot, the physical appearance of the characters, etc. A movie, on the other hand, doesn't need to use verbal language in order to give the audience information of that sort. It uses, instead, visual language.

For instance: In Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings",  a fair amount of words is used to describe the appearance of hobbits. In the movie, not a single word is used for that purpose, and the audience understands what hobbits look like from seeing them on the screen.

By the way, you can probably check this by opening a play or a screen play and compare the number of words per page with the number of words per page in a novel. 

Whenever you see a film that is based on a book, don't you notice the huge chunks of plot that have been left out of the film in order to squeeze it into ninety minutes of footage?

I'd say that a book has many more words.

I would definitely say that a book consists of more words, due to the fact that a book not only includes dialog like a movie, but also the narration of the story. If you compare it to a movie with just dialog (like the average movie) the average book would have more words because it has dialog and narration.

A movie or play will have less or equal words than the print copy of the script or book.

Shakespear were plays, then people read them, and there is more direction in the print-book copy.

 Ludlum's books certainly had more words than the Bourne movies.

 Two examples, but the instinct is correct.