New York had a movie premiere worthy of a nice chianti Monday night.

"Red Dragon," which brings Anthony Hopkins back to the screen as Hannibal the Cannibal, unspooled at the Ziegfeld Theater, with guests partying in a roped-off section of Grand Central Station afterwards, PEOPLE.com reports.

Among the guests: the movie's stars, Hopkins, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel and Ralph Fiennes, as well as rap entrepreneur Russell Simmons, self-actualization guru Tony Robbins and former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, with her longtime boyfriend Ian Klaus.

Unlike last year's gory "Hannibal," which was a little too "brainy" for some people's tastes, "Red Dragon" proved a crowd-pleaser by dishing up more suspense than gore.

Director Brett Ratner's "Red Dragon," which opens to the public on Friday, is actually the second film to be based on "Silence of the Lambs" author Thomas Harris's novel of the same name (and is a prequel to "Lambs"). In the original movie version of "Dragon," Michael Mann's "Manhunter" (1986), the British stage actor Brian Cox played Lecter.

Before the new movie was screened, Norton, 33, who arrived with Salma Hayek, told reporters outside the Ziegfeld that the box-office appeal of the man-eating protagonist has to do with the fact that "people secretly wish they were more like Hannibal -- he cuts through the b.s. and gets to the heart of things."

Hopkins, 64, skirted the same question, however, saying only: "You'll have to ask a psychologist."