Casting Jack Black as Tom Bombadil in Rings of Power: Can it Actually Work?
Well, who knows, right?
It is not like Jack Black as Tom Bombadil can make The Rings of Power any worse at this stage, but we won't be able to tell whether this casting can work, unless the showrunners actually attempt it. However, judging by the massive number of upvotes which the idea of Jack Black as Tom Bombadil gained on Reddit, it clearly has traction.
It should be noted that Jack Black himself is a fan of Peter Jackson's movies. His affectionate parody skit, filmed for the 2002 MTV Movie Awards, was even included as an Easter egg on the Extended Edition DVD of The Fellowship of the Ring:
So in principle he might agree to work on something related to Middle-earth, if invited.
And Jack Black already has plenty of experience acting (or voice acting, in any case) as a funny character whose mere presence on screen usually changes the mood of a story from serious and dramatic to much more light-hearted and comedic – not dissimilar to what Tom Bombadil, with his fairy tale antics, does in his chapters – after voicing the protagonist in Kung Fu Panda 1-3.
With some makeup, Jack Black can be made to look like the usual pictures of Tom Bombadil too. And as one Redditor said,
"For as goofy as he is, I feel like he would have taken the role incredibly seriously and done his best to do Bombadil justice."
In any case, all of this is pure fan speculation. While Tom Bombadil, said to be the oldest being in Middle-earth can, of course, appear on The Rings of Power, there is no actual indication from the showrunners that he ever will. And given what they did to other characters, there is scant hope that they may do him justice.
After all, portraying a character whose entire existence is tonally dissonant from the rest of the world, to the point where he would have been considered loony, if not for the fact that he somehow makes the world play along with his ideas, is difficult even for highly skilled filmmakers, particularly if that character is a side character.
Radagast as portrayed in the Hobbit trilogy is probably the closest thing to Bombadil among Tolkien's characters who did appear on the screen – and his portrayal was not exactly universally liked.