“Wicked”!

The world got its years-overdue first look at the upcoming film adaptation of the Broadway juggernaut “Wicked” on Super Bowl Sunday. The reviews are mixed but generally positive.

Just as the trailer was being shown to 204 million people watching the big football game on CBS, it also was posted to YouTube, where it has since been viewed by nearly 4 million and drawn 10,000 user comments.

Broadway’s notoriously, well, wicked fan base seems for the most part pleased with what’s to come on Thanksgiving, when the first half of the epic endeavor is finally released a full five years after its initial 2019 launch date.

This first trailer downplays the rivalry between the green and glittery witches, Elphaba and Glinda (played by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande), instead focusing on their mutual antipathy toward the wily and wayward Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).

The high-flying trailer introduces an ambitiously imagined Ozian world both real and computer-generated, similar in approach to the megahit “Wonka.” The trailer leans heavily into the most popular song from the musical, “Defying Gravity,” and gives equal time to Erivo and Grande.

In the clip, a shocked Glinda declares, “You’re green,” to Elphaba, who responds, “I am.”

The musical, based on Gregory Maguire’s novel, is one of Broadway’s biggest successes – and the movie is said to be delving more deeply into Maguire’s dense and allegorical source story. It also features flying monkeys, yellow brick roads and an aerial view of the Emerald City.

Unlike “Wonka” and recent adaptations of “The Color Purple” and “Mean Girls,” the “Wicked” trailer leaves no doubt that this story is a musical right down to its DNA.

“I’m here for it,” Denver’s Rob Rehburg said as part of a local fan survey conducted by the Denver Gazette. “I tend to expect disappointment when it comes to movie versions of stage musicals, but perhaps I need to relax on this one a bit based on this teaser. I didn’t think I’d be nearly as excited as I am after seeing that.”

The casting of Erivo, a Broadway and film powerhouse who is Black, and Grande, a race-bending pop star of Italian heritage who identifies as primarily White, has drawn broth grousing and hallelujahs.

Jennasea Pearce of Broomfield loves “Wicked” and is excited, she said, “for an adaptation with an incredible cast that will create many more fans. Yes, movie musicals get a bad rap, and they haven’t all been great, but this is an incredible opportunity to create a more inclusive fan base.”

Fans were united in their displeasure that the story is being split into two parts, with the second film scheduled to come out a full year after the first.

Arvada’s Carla Kaiser Kotrc finds breaking up the story to be “ludicrous,” which prompted a funny response from Denver’s Vance McKenzie: ”A year-long intermission is a little much.”

Superior’s Shannon Gaydos-Hinkle agreed. “I don’t know why it needs to be two films,” she said. “But oh my God, that looks really cool.”

Abby McInereny, a Denver actor and young mother, cannot wait for the film because “it will give people who can’t afford to attend (the stage show) the opportunity to see the magic of theater,” she said.

But there are many purists who love live theater who have had enough of film adaptations of their favorite musicals.

“I couldn’t care less about this release,” said Nancy Evans Begley of Parker. “I’ll see it on stage, where it belongs.”

Denver-born Madison Kitchen, now living in Boston, wanted to be mad at the movie, too. “But then the trailer started, and I burst into tears,” she said. “I think it looks stunning.”