LOS ANGELES - James McAvoy knows how Hobbit-forming the Internet can be.

Despite widely circulated reports he will portray Bilbo Baggins in two Lord of the Rings prequels, the star of Atonement and Wanted insists he's not packing his bags for a trip to Middle Earth.

"It's all just rumours," the 29-year-old tells Sun Media. "It's just Internet discussions that caught the imagination of some people, but it's not true."

Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro will helm the back-to-back productions; Rings director Peter Jackson is producing. The first movie, based on The Hobbit, is due out in December 2011.

Says McAvoy, "For people to think that someone like Guillermo del Toro or Peter Jackson would at all be interested in hiring me is very, very flattering. It would be even more flattering if it were true."

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