Based on the popular Marvel comics by Stan Lee, Spider-Man tells the story of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), an orphaned, intellectual teen loner living in Queens with his aunt (Rosemary Harris) and uncle (Cliff Robertson), and dreaming of the girl next door, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). On a field trip to a Columbia University lab, Peter is bitten by a genetically engineered “super spider” and, overnight, gains superhuman strength, agility, and perception. A tragedy follows that compels him to devote his powers to fighting crime—as the superhero Spider-Man. Peter’s do-gooder alter ego finds a nemesis in the form of the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), a super-powered, megalomaniacal villain. They come face to face, and a war begins in which only one of them will survive.