I actually would not want the Justice League film to try and imitate Man of Steel , or Avengers with repeating the alien invasion theme even though it's the easiest to contemplate. I think it would not be building on the DC universe.Why not use the magic angle? I don't mean make all the villains magical beings but like have them come through to earth via a magical spell.For example have Felix Faust try to take over earth by trying to find the 3 magical artifacts Green Bell of Uthool, the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath and the Red Jar of Calythos to summon the Demon Three but unbeknown to him all these are special dimensional keys that let Darkseid, Doomsday and Ma'a lefa'ak (the demon 3) through. We can have him start the movie finding one artifact, then the dimensional being from the first artifact(Doomsday) helps him locate the other, and when he lets out the second being (Ma'alefa'ak) then we see the justice league battle these two to prevent the last artifact getting into Faust's hands letting Darkseid through. I want the last installment to have a magical , mystical play on these villains.

Could this work?

Its probably just my fandom speaking but I think a Throne of Atlantis would work better for an intro to JLA. Its different than another alien invasion (which we've seen too many times).

If you want to trim the fat you can even use Aquaman as a "villain" instead of Ocean Master. Make him badass and erase the stigma from the get-go.

Doing Darkseid first would be a bad move - imo.

@fallschirmjager: I actually think Darkseid would work great for the first movie since it could really make the movie big, and DC has the villain to go even bigger after. Throne of Atlantis could be interesting since it could have Aquaman start as a villain, but I was kinda hoping the first Wonder Woman movie would feature a conflict between the Amazons and the Atlantians so I'd rather save them for that.

@justthatkid: Yeah I think if you're gonna do Demons Three then they should just be actual demon. Maybe try and throw in a few other villains in supporting roles though. This wouldn't be my first pick for the movie but having a magic based villain would be a good reason to have Zatanna in the starting lineup,

@muffin_sangria: Yeah, seeing WW and Aquaman duke it out in live action would be pretty epic. Their animated Fight in Flashpoint was awesome.

@fallschirmjager: Ideally I'd like that movie to happen before Justice League. Get the hero on hero fights out of the way so the team can work better when they all get together. Plus I think it makes more sense id WW and AM aren't acquaintances yet, and would really be the best introduction for AM compared to him randomly popping up in BvS or JL.