It looks like we may finally be getting some casting announcements for The Hobbit! MTV spoke with director Guillermo del Toro and he expects to make an announcement in the next few weeks:

At Sundance in January, del Toro announced that he’d narrowed the search to just four actors. So when the director stopped by the MTV offices today to chat about his new vampire novel “The Strain,” everyone had to know the “Hobbit” question would rise again.

It did, and del Toro revealed that four possible Bilbos had now become one. “I believe we’re very close now to saying one name,” he said, adding that he expects to make an announcement in the next few weeks.

Ian Holm (seen above) played Bilbo in the trilogy, however The Hobbit is set before the Lord of the Rings and Ian Holm is nearly 80 so they obviously needed to recast the role. Personally, I hope Martin Freeman (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Hot Fuzz) gets the part, however we shall see…

…well they didn’t actually say his name, but its pretty obvious! (I think)

Guillermo del Toro spoke to Empire magazine recently and revealed that both him and Peter Jackson have mutually agreed on their choice for who should step into the shoes of Ian Holm and lead the film as Bilbo Baggins.

“I can tell you that it’s down to a few names that we all agree upon. And that our first choice…completely, magically, we said the same name. All of us!”

“We said this is the guy we would talk to, but until the pages are there you have to let the character tell you who he wants to be played by…”

The reasons I want and think Martin Freeman should play Bilbo are:
A) He looks like a Hobbit (no offence to him)
B) He looks like Ian Holm
C) He auditioned for the villain role in Jackson’s upcoming drama The Lovely Bones but ultimately lost out to Stanley Tucci, therefore Peter Jackson does know of his existence.

Everyone across the internet thinks that Martian Freeman would make a perfect Bilbo Baggins, so if Peter and Guillermo have someone else in mind then he must be even better than Freeman, which will be tough. Maybe there is someone we haven’t noticed yet. However, we wont find out who they have in mind as according to Guillermo:

“You can expect at least a year before we announce any casting.”