They need a director who truly loves the source material. Take Peter Jackson. You can look at his LOTR trilogy and see he really loves the novels. That's not to say pulp heroes need to have their film directed by PJ. The trick is to find the right story to tell. I'm a fan of the pulps because of their pacing. One of my favorite pulp heroes, Elric of Melnibone, has a very cinematic lineup of novels and short stories.
Elric's tale is a dark fantasy; a tragedy. The first novel (by internal chronology, rather than publication order) opens with Elric, Emperor of the Melniboneans, a race that once ruled the world astride their mighty dragons. They've become insular and are growing decadent even as mankind begins to emerge as a major power in the world.
In order to save his race, Elric navigates treachery in his court and enters into a Faustian pact in order to root out the subversives in his court. Then he embarks on a journey of enlightenment which ends with the destruction of Melnibone in a torrent of firing and raping, with most of the Melniboneans taken as slaves for mankind.
The story reaches a climax with the Lords of Chaos begin manifesting upon the Earth to give Chaos dominance over Law. This entails a number of epic battles on the scale of Jackson's LOTR trilogy, except you replace the orcs and goblins with warped, twisted creatures that resemble the Thing from John Carpenter's The Thing. Throw in some dragons and sorcery and you've got an epic to rival the Middle-Earth saga.
So, yeah, I'd like to see the Elric trilogy realized. It's been in talks for about 6-7 years now. No progress yet.
Edit: my attraction to Elric is that he's really not a clean-cut hero at all. He's got no qualms about butchering his enemy's lackeys and feeding them to his patron Duke of Hell. After all, they were working for the villain! You could also read the saga as an inversion of the old heroic fantasy trops.
