THE growing pains of Harry Potter have their compensations. Daniel Radcliffe, 16, the actor who plays the boy wizard, has become Britain’s richest teenager.

His earnings have outstripped those of singers Charlotte Church and Joss Stone and every under-21 Premiership footballer.

Insiders in the British film industry say he has now signed a deal worth at least £8m to make Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film in the series, which is due for release in 2007.

Records at Companies House show that Gilmore Jacobs, a firm set up five years ago by Radcliffe’s parents to manage him but whose ordinary share capital is 100% owned by Daniel, has earned £10m from the first three films.

The next set of accounts, due to be filed next spring, are likely to show another £5m in earnings.

Radcliffe has become Britain’s answer to Macaulay Culkin, now 25, the American child actor who made £27m from the Home Alone films and subsequent movies.

His co-stars, Rupert Grint, 17, who plays Ron Weasley, and Emma Watson, 15, who stars as Hermione Granger, have also seen their earnings grow for the latest instalment of the franchise, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was released last week.

Watson told a web-based fanzine: “All of my money is locked away in a bank till I’m 25.”

More than half a million people are expected to see the latest film in cinemas in Britain this weekend and the movie is set to make more than £25m at the box office in the UK alone. In the US it is showing on 3,858 screens.

Mike Newell, its British director, who also made Four Weddings and a Funeral, said of his three child stars last week: “They all know exactly what they’re worth but they have not become impossible. My worst fear was that they would have realised that they are absolutely the stars.”

It is five years since Daniel, who had impressed as a young David in the BBC adaptation of David Copperfield, beat off thousands of hopefuls in a worldwide hunt to take the magical role. The auditions attracted 40,000 boys in Britain alone.

His father Alan, a literary agent, and mother Marcia, a casting director, set up Gilmore Jacobs a month later to maximise his earnings. One showbusiness source recalls warning Alan Radcliffe about the risks of gambling his career on his son’s acting ability. “He replied: ‘I think we’re going to be fine’,” said the source.

The company held its first “board meetings” at the family home in Fulham, west London. Its only tangible fixed asset — the office furniture — was valued at £468. Daniel’s parents own £1,000 of special shares but have stipulated that if the company is wound up they would expect only the return of their original investment.

The accounts show that Daniel, then 11, was paid about £150,000 for the first Potter film, which took 11 months to make, mixing shooting scenes with his schooling.

Until the latest film, when he turned 16, child labour laws restricted him to working no more than 4½ hours a day.

The increase in his worth matches that of Culkin, who was paid £60,000 as a 10-year-old for the first Home Alone. Its director, Chris Columbus, also made the first two Potter films.

Since the first film Daniel has grown 11in, his voice has broken and he has started to shave, but he is still in demand and likely to complete all seven films in the series.

He said last week: “I don’t actually know how much I am worth at this point. In a way, I think that’s right. It’s not something that affects the way I think about things.”

He joked that he was planning to buy 20 Porsches and crash them, “just for the extravagance”. But he also admitted that he had been longing to reach 16 so he could play the National Lottery.

He added: “If childhood is being surrounded by people who you love being around and being incredibly happy, I absolutely have had that.”

His increasing maturity has coincided with tabloid reports linking him romantically with Amy Byrne, a make-up artist seven years his senior.

The appeal of the film is unlikely to be dented by its 12A certificate. Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, head of distribution for Warner Bros International, said: “Over the three [previous] pictures, the audience has been ageing along with the cast.”

Philip Beresford, compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List, who studied the Gilmore Jacobs accounts, said: “I’ve never seen such profitable accounts for someone so young. I would not be surprised if he enters adulthood with £20m in the bank, with all his taxes paid. He has left his teenage rivals struggling in the slipstream of his broomstick.”

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