Tom Cruise is MIA, but Martin Scorsese, Rihanna and 'A Quiet Place' thrill at Paramount's CinemaCon panel

Exhibitors in Las Vegas for CinemaCon hoping to see Tom Cruise regal them with stories of his latest death-defying stunt may have been disappointed. The actor was neither present in the flesh (as he was in 2017) or recorded a bonkers stunt performance to screen for them (as he did in 2022).

But otherwise there was very little disappointing about Paramount’s entertaining, star-powered presentation Thursday.

Audiences got a 20-minute sneak peek at Cruise’s upcoming Mission: Impossible sequel, Martin Scorsese unspooled the first trailer for his long-awaited epic Killers of the Flower Moon, John Krasinski brought footage from not one but two exciting projects (including an AQuiet Place prequel), Ziggy Marley showed the first look at a biopic on his legendary dad, and a very pregnant Rihanna made a surprise appearance to announce she’ll soon be a smurf.

Check out our full recap of highlights here:

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Paramount Pictures president CEO Brian Robbins said he’s no fan of hyperbole but promised “Tom Cruise and [director] Christopher McQuarrie have done it again” as he presented the seventh installment in the hit action series. While there was no specific mention of Cruise’s increasingly dangerous madman stunt tactics, a trailer showed him jumping a motorcycle off a (very high) cliff in a scene we’re betting was captured practically.

A 20-minute scene from the film, meanwhile, set up the film’s driving plot: Cruise’s Ethan Hunt intercepts the arrest of Grace (Hayley Atwell), a mysterious, multiple-identity-carrying globetrotter before the two go on a high-intensity car chase together through the streets of Rome, while driving a hilariously tiny yellow Fiat. The film opens July 12.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Paramount is partnering with Apple Studios for the theatrical distribution of Scorsese’s much-hyped crime thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, newcomer Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons and more. Scorsese received some of the most passionate cheers we’ve heard this week from the CinemaCon crowd as he teased his fifth film with DiCaprio, tenth with De Niro and “first with them both.” The maestro then unveiled the tense and violent first trailer for the film (premiering at Cannes next month and opening wide in October), a 1920s-set drama about a string murders in Oklahoma’s Osage Nation after oil is discovered on tribal land.

A Quiet Place: Day One and IF

After making mega-bucks for the studios with two A Quiet Place movies, Krasinski has become one of Paramount’s golden boys. The actor-writer-director-producer appears to introduce never-seen-before looks at two 2024 releases. First, Krasinski showed a short but scary teaser trailer the prequel A Quiet Place: Day One (March 8, 2024), which stars Lupita Nyong’o as a New York City woman who bears witness to the killer aliens’ initial landing.

Krasinski admitted he was jealous he didn’t direct the recently wrapped Day One (those duties went to breakout Pig filmmaker Michael Sarnoski), but he was busy helming another passion project, IF. “Unlike A Quiet Place, I thought I’d make a movie that my kids could see before they turned 40,” he cracked. His upcoming family film (May 24, 2024), a hybrid of live action and CGI, follows a young girl (Cailey Fleming) with the superpower to see everyone’s imaginary friends (her own is voiced by Steve Carell). Krasinski screened an entertaining behind the scenes look at the surefire blockbuster, which costar Ryan Reynolds described as like a “live action Pixar movie.”

Some seriously star-studded animated movies

Yeah, Scorsese is a living legend, but the biggest superstar to hit the Caesars Palace stage was Rihanna, who made a surprise appearance to announce she was voicing Smurfette in 2025’s Chris Miller-directed animated adventure The Smurf Movie. “I got to show up in my PJs in my third trimester and play a little boo badass,” said the pop star, who revealed she was pregnant with a second child during her Super Bowl halftime show and will also write and perform songs for the film. “I hope this gives me a little bit of cool points with my kids someday.”

Paramount also announced a starry cast for Transformers One, the first animated Autobots and Decepticons feature film in 40 years: Chris Hemsworth, Bryan Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan Michael Key, Jon Hamm and Laurence Fishburne will voice. (We already know about the cast for the upcoming live action adventure Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, opening June 9, but director Steven Caple Jr. and stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback appeared to tout their globe-spanning, '90s-set actioner.)

Even the new Paw Patrol movie (Sept. 29’s The Mighty Movie) is stacked, with an announcement that Chris Rock will join Taraji P. Henson, Kristen Bell, James Marsden, Serena Williams and Kim Kardashian in voice roles.

Bob Marley: One Love

Ziggy Marley, son of reggae legend Bob Marley and musical great in his own right, appeared to tout Hollywood’s first biopic on the late Jamaican icon. “With this movie I think people will get to deepen their connection to Bob,” Ziggy proclaimed. He also screened a first trailer for the drama, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) and starring Kingsley Ben-Adir (who played Malcolm X in One Night in Miami) as Bob and Lashana Lynch as his wife, Rita. Ben-Adir looks especially impressive in the film, and could possibly be an Oscar contender come winter should Paramount do a limited release ahead of its planned Jan. 12, 2024 release date.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Turtles superfan, “permanent teenager” and Mutant Mayhem producer Seth Rogen had CinemaCon cackling. After gushing over his longtime TMNT fandom (“Aside from getting beat up all the time, it was one of the main reasons I started doing karate”), the popular comedy star spoke proudly of how the animated film marks the first Turtles project to cast actual teens in the title roles, and encouraged them to improv. “They said so many disgusting things that we couldn’t use in the movie, but thankfully they said a lot that we could,” said Rogen. He also screened an extended look at the film, which teased the villain Superfly (Ice Cube), introduced a Black April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri), and includes a hilarious cast of other mutants (including Paul Rudd’s Mondo Gecko, Hannibal Buress’s Genghis Frog and Post Malone’s Ray Fillet). Mayhem begins Aug. 4.