Tabloid rumour of the day is that Martin Freeman has been offered the lead in the upcoming movies of The Hobbit. And furthermore, it's being reported that he's turned the part of Bilbo Baggins down.

Instead, according to a report in The Sun today, Freeman rejected the role so that he could carry on playing Dr Watson in Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss' modern-day reworking of Sherlock. Freeman, reports the paper, is committed to 20 weeks of filming for Sherlock in 2011, and he wouldn't have been able to take that on had he signed up for the year-long shoot for the two The Hobbit movies.

The Sun quotes a source as saying, "It was one of the most difficult decisions of his career. MGM, who are making the film, only got a formal offer over in the last couple of weeks. It was too late for Martin because he had already signed up for another series of Sherlock. It was agonising but he had no other choice."

More on the story here, and as usual, approach with the requisite degree of tabloid salt...