At CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday, April 3, 2025, Tom Cruise opened Paramount Pictures’ presentation by honoring his Top Gun co-star Val Kilmer, who had died earlier that week. Cruise praised Kilmer’s work, thanked him for joining the franchise, asked the room of movie theater owners to observe a moment of silence, and closed with a short farewell: “Thank you, Val. I wish you well on your next journey.”
What Cruise said and did on stage
Cruise was at CinemaCon to promote Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, and he was scheduled to appear as part of the Paramount Pictures presentation at Caesars Palace. Before turning to the studio’s slate, he addressed the audience directly about Kilmer. According to the Associated Press’s account, the tribute was the opening of his appearance, not a closing remark tacked on at the end.
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Cruise called Kilmer “a dear friend” and described admiring his work and valuing him as a person. He then asked the attendees to join him in silence. Variety’s report adds that he encouraged people in the room to think about the good times they had with Kilmer, which is the only detail in the coverage about how the audience responded to the moment.
The moment of silence and the closing words
The silence was the emotional center of the segment. Cruise did not speak over it, and the coverage does not describe how long it lasted. He ended the tribute with a brief personal farewell addressed to Kilmer by first name, and the presentation then moved into its regular program.
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- Top Gun (Blu-ray + Digital)
Their shared films: 1986 and 2022
Cruise and Kilmer worked together in two films, separated by more than three decades. The table below summarizes the roles that the reporting identifies.
| Film | Release year | Cruise’s role | Kilmer’s role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top Gun | 1986 | Pete “Maverick” Mitchell | Tom “Iceman” Kazansky |
| Top Gun: Maverick | 2022 | Pete “Maverick” Mitchell | Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, returning in the sequel |
Cruise’s remarks at CinemaCon specifically thanked Kilmer for joining the first film and for coming back for the sequel, which is why the two movies anchor the tribute. ABC News’s coverage identifies the same two films and roles.
Exact wording of the tribute
The following remarks are quoted from news reports of the event, not from a full official transcript. Punctuation follows the cited outlet.
- Opening (Variety): “I’d like to honor a dear friend of mine, Val Kilmer.”
- Longer remark (Associated Press): “I really can’t tell you how much I admired his work, how much I thought of him as a human being, and how grateful and honored I was when he joined ‘Top Gun’ and then came back for ‘Top Gun: Maverick.'”
- Closing (Associated Press): “Thank you, Val. I wish you well on your next journey.”
What the reporting does and does not establish
- The date, venue, and sequence are established by the Associated Press report, published April 3, 2025, and corroborated by ABC News and Variety.
- The quotations are taken from those reports. Where outlets excerpted the same remarks differently, the article uses each outlet’s wording and attributes it.
- The coverage describes Cruise’s comments about Kilmer’s work and character. It does not describe any private details of their friendship, and this article does not add any.
- Coverage of the event did not record a precise length for the silence or a reaction from the audience beyond what Variety reported.
The event itself is a settled matter of record. Film availability, streaming rights, and physical editions change over time and vary by country, so readers who want to watch either Top Gun film should check a current streaming or rental service in their region.
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