Tobey Maguire to be Bilbo Baggins?

Tobey Maguire to play Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit? And here I thought the advances in CGI meant that they didn't have to cast a short-arse.

According to Latino Review, producers are in early talks with the pint-sized star to be the leading hobbit in the middle earth prequel. Sounds about right, given that his Ice Storm co-star Elijah Woods is also about 3ft tall and that pretty much got him cast as Frodo.

There is, however, reason to believe that this is all a steaming pile of Mordor. That reason is a little troublesome flick called Spidey 4: Better Than the Last One, We Promise.

The fourth webcrawler movie is set to start shooting in the New Year and The Hobbit is set to film in the Summer which means it's going to be a close shave if Maguire wants to fit both into his schedule. And who knows if he has even learned to shave yet?

So what do we think? Is Toby gonna be Bilbo? Would it be the worst casting since Kirsten Dunst in...well, you get the idea. Maybe he's gonna play a more minor character - providing the voice for Smaug the Dragon, maybe? Or a warlock? Are there warlocks in the Hobbit? Who knows...

On a more interesting note, I found out today that Tobey Maguire became a daddy back in May to an Otis Tobias Maguire. I don't care how much kids like Spider-man, that won't stop them beating the living crap out his sprog for having a name that sounds like part of a latin incantation.

Update: In the eight hours that have passed since putting this up, Tobey Maguire's publicist has flatly denied the rumour...which I'm taking to mean that it will definitely happen (just to get more mileage out of this post).