Everybody wants to be a rock star these days. As it turns out, plenty of people want to watch them, too.

Some want to see them in concert. Others want to learn their back story. Either way, an easy way to see both is by heading to your local movie theater. Whether it’s watching the hard-lived life of country legend Johnny Cash or the enigmatic existence of Bob Dylan, this decade, music icons have caught audiences’ attention in a big way.

But the 21st century isn’t the only decade to prominently feature films on iconic musicians. Biopics have been around almost as long as cinema itself. Stars like Jimmy Stewart have portrayed big band leader Glenn Miller in 1953’s “The Glenn Miller Story,” and Motown diva Diana Ross took the stage as Billie Holiday in 1972’s “Lady Sings the Blues” just to name a few.

Numerous dramas based on the lives of musicians followed in the ‘80s and ‘90s, like piano rock ‘n’ roller Jerry Lee Lewis, played by Dennis Quaid, in 1989’s “Great Balls of Fire” or Val Kilmer as ‘60s psychedelic singer frontman Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” in 1991. Punk rock bassist Sid Vicious, country star Loretta Lynn and jazz pioneer Charlie Parker all got their stories told on screen over the years.

But this decade has seen some serious interest in the potential of musical biopics. That was largely thanks to Jamie Foxx, who played soul genius Ray Charles in 2004’s “Ray” and won an Academy Award for Best Actor. Bob Shultz, KQ2 movie critic, thinks that the film “reintroduced the genre” of biopics and proved their potential for profit. And Hollywood saw it, too.

“One successful idea breeds a thousand copycats,” Shultz says.

The genre continued to be successful with “Walk the Line,” starring Joaquin Phoenix as country outlaw Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon, who played Cash’s romantic and musical partner June Carter Cash. The young starlet won an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance.

With success like this, it makes biopic projects a hot Hollywood commodity.

“The stars want to do it because they win Oscars and it makes their money,” says Deny Staggs, assistant professor of acting/directing for theater and video at Missouri Western State University.

Mark Elting, adjunct instructor for Missouri Western State University’s music department, thinks a society that thrives on tabloid fodder is part of the reason why these films, which reveal the darker side of legendary artists, continue to thrive.

“Our society lives on trash,” Elting says. “They got to know the dirt.”

This decade has seen biopics on everyone from crooner Bobby Darin (played by Kevin Spacey in “Beyond the Sea”) to composer Cole Porter (played by Kevin Kline in “De-Lovely”) to Ian Curtis, frontman for post-punk pioneers Joy Division (“Control”). There was also the six, count ’em six, actors who played different versions of legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan in 2007’s “I’m Not There.”

There were so many different music biopics being made that it warranted parody, which is exactly what it got with the release of the Judd Apatow comedy “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” starring John C. Reilly in 2007, which spoofed the entire genre.

Elting points out that the sheer volume of music films being produced could have a negative effect by giving musicians with different levels of cultural impact virtually identical importance.

“There is an overkill point,” Elting says. “It dilutes the really cool stuff and the really cool icons that we should be studying. The specialness, I think, is gone. It just becomes a gimmick to make a little more money.”

Currently, the trend of musical icons getting their lives translated to film doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon. A biopic on reggae legend Bob Marley is tentatively scheduled to begin filming in late 2009. Academy Award-nominated actor Don Cheadle will direct and star in a film about jazz legend Miles Davis. A movie on Brooklyn rapper The Notorious B.I.G. is currently in production. And in latest news to hit the biopic rumor mill, Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is attached to a film about the life of ol’ blue eyes Frank Sinatra.

But with the importance of digital music and MP3 players, with millions of people feeling the need to take their entire music collection with them everywhere they go, gimmick or not, musical biopics will continue to attract an audience.

“Music is just a central part of everyone’s lives,” Shultz says. “I think we are getting so many different styles of music that we are getting a resurgence of music in the iPod generation.”

Lifestyles reporter Blake Hannon can be reached at blakehannon@npgco.com