Scriptment
A scriptment is a written work by a movie or television screenwriter that combines elements of a script and treatment, especially the dialogue elements, which are formatted the same as in a screenplay. It is a more elaborate document than a standard draft treatment. A lengthy scriptment may resemble a script sufficiently to be used as the basis for qualifying the writer to receive or share a screenplay credit, as opposed to just a story credit. Some films have been shot using only a scriptment.
Origin
The term "scriptment" was originally coined by filmmaker James Cameron, possibly during his early involvement in the development of the Spider-Man film series. In that effort, after the success of his 1984 film The Terminator, Cameron wrote a 57-page scriptment for the first proposed Spider-Man film, which was used by screenwriter David Koepp to write the first draft, incorporating it nearly word for word.
Cameron's scriptment for Titanic (1997) was 131 pages. The term became more widely known when Cameron's 1994 scriptment for the 2009 film Avatar was leaked on the internet during pre-production, although other directors, such as John Hughes and Zak Penn, had written scriptments before. The scriptment for Avatar (2009) and its notoriety caused the spread of the term.