It seems some rumors never die, and need to be shot down by the men in charge. We reported last month that Tobey Maguire was in talks to play Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, which was later shot down by Maguire himself.

Still, earlier today the British tabloid The Sun reported that Maguire was going to star in the film and now both TheOneRing.net and Ain't It Cool News have confirmed that Maguire has not been cast as Bilbo Baggins.

TheOneRing.net received word from director Guillermo del Toro himself on the site's message boards, with this simple message:

Not true.

G

AICN reached out to both executive producer Peter Jackson and del Toro on the matter, and in addition to receiving a response similar to del Toro's message-board post ("It's not true, gordito- G") the site received the following email from Jackson.

No truth at all, although we're all big fans of Toby. We are currently auditioning for Bilbo, and a month or two away from any announcements.

Cheers

Peter J

We'll be sure to keep you posted on any more news on The Hobbit's development as soon as we have more information.