Casting continues for the upcoming two films to be made out of The Hobbit, with director Guillermo del Toro preparing to shoot the movies at some point in the next few months. Once he begins rolling cameras, the shoot is expecting to take just over a year, before the post-production work required for a Christmas 2011 release of The Hobbit Part I begins.

In the past week, almost inevitably, rumours have begun resurfacing about the proposed casting of the role of Bilbo Baggins, which has, once again, been linked with Tobey Maguire. Of course, since Maguire's commitments to Spider-Man 4 have now evaporated, his schedule is looking a lot clearer than it was a week or two back. So, it wasn't the biggest surprise when The Sun splashed a story announcing that Maguire was being signed up for the role of Bilbo. The paper quoted a source as saying it was a done deal, but a few e-mails from AintItCoolNews to Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro quickly nixed the rumour.

Peter Jackson stated, "No truth at all, although we're all big fans of Tobey," while Guillermo del Toro revealed too that "It's not true." That seems to be as straightforward a denial on both counts as you get, from the two people who would know.

Here's the piece at AintItCool, and we expect to find out just who will be filling the role of Bilbo in a month or two's time...