This evening, fans in New York and Los Angeles attended what they thought was going to be a preview of footage from 20th Century Fox’s upcoming superhero pic Deadpool. Instead, they were treated to an unfinished version of the whole movie. Yep, Deadpool has screened folks, and the first reactions from this admittedly select group of fans are highly positive. One even goes so far as to call it the best Marvel adaptation yet, with self-proclaimed fans of the source material saying they’re incredibly pleased with the resulting film from director Tim Miller.

Star Ryan Reynolds was at the New York screening, while Miller was in attendance at the Los Angeles screening alongside co-stars T.J. Miller and Briana Hildebrand, creator Rob Liefeld, screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, producer Simon Kinberg, and comics legend Stan Lee. This has been, of course, a passion project for Miller and Reynolds, and it’s all the more impressive that it finally came to fruition in its purest form: as an R-rated superhero movie. Deadpool marks a major step for the superhero genre as a whole, carving out what could become a new niche in the superhero movie realm that allows filmmakers to tackle more difficult or adult material in the form of an R-rated film. That this comes from 20th Century Fox, and is an official piece of the studio’s interconnected X-Men franchise, is incredibly exciting, and folks are certainly looking at Deadpool’s performance to see if this kind of gamble can pave the way for future entries in the genre.

For now, the fan response from these surprise screenings is certainly positive. I’m curious to see what the critical response to the film will be, seeing as how it’s still a fairly tough sell and will likely need strong word of mouth to reach the box office heights of many of its PG-13 contemporaries. This fan screening is getting things off to a strong start, and as a big fan of the marketing materials thus far, I continue to have high hopes.

Read the responses from Twitter below. We’ll update the article if more reactions come in. Deadpool opens in theaters on February 12th.