Most Popular Stories in Hollywood Films 2007-2011. Story types are ordered by total films released, and broken down to show profit (worldwide gross minus budget), and most profitable film in each story type per year (% of budget recovered). The takeaway? From 2007-2011 the most popular story type was Comedy with 83 films made, but the most profitable was Quest, with $8.6 billion. The most profitable film? Paranormal Activity, thanks to its tiny budget. Data supplied by Information Is Beautiful.