About a Boy has gone straight to the top of the UK box office with ticket sales of £3.7m over the weekend, making the Hugh Grant dad-lit comedy the third biggest opener of the year.

Only Monsters Inc and Ocean's Eleven have had better opening weekends in 2002, say figures from Screen Daily.

About a Boy opened to mostly positive reviews on Friday, and is directed by Paul and Chris Weitz, the brothers responsible for the gross-out comedy American Pie. In it, Grant plays a 30-something bachelor who joins a single parents' group as a way to meet women, but finds himself befriending a young boy.

This is the third Hornby novel to be given the big screen treatment. Both Fever Pitch, starring Colin Firth, and High Fidelity with John Cusack successfully transferred to film. It is also the fourth Working Title film that Grant has been involved in. Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999) and last year's Bridget Jones's Diary have all been popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

About a Boy opens in the US on May 17.