Latino Review has the exclusive tip that Spider-Man‘s Tobey Maguire is in talks to play the lead Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro‘s upcoming 2-part adaptation of The Hobbit. The question arises with Spider-Man 4 starting up, if Maguire will have time for both projects. LR debunks the rumor that Spider-Man 4 and 5 are shooting back to back so that leaves Raimi’s project to shoot in a couple of months and The Hobbit for summer 2010. The filming of both Hobbit films are rumored to take 370 days so that would make Maguire quite a busy man. First Showing reported a smaller project Maguire may be involved in, but with the strenuous schedule I wonder if it he could do it all. With The Hobbit not even greenlit yet, you can expect more announcements in the coming weeks related to funding, casting and other pre-production.

I think Maguire would be a great choice. He showed some fine acting chops in the recently released Brothers and I’m sure the studios will have faith in him, after his work headlining another franchise.

The Hobbit has a tentative release of Part 1 in December 2011 and the 2nd Part the following year.

Do you think Maguire could pull off Baggins?