I wasn't interested in going to the school dances. I wasn't interested in going to the football games. What I wanted was to be in my room painting my walls and doing weird stuff. That's what I wanted and I got to do what I wanted, so that, to me, is my high school experience.
I was surprised that the TV series was popular itself, but after that it went on to become more popular over the years and thus it seemed eventually that they would turn it into a movie.