I'll let Kinberg's own words address this issue and people can make up their own minds (I've bolded the comments that seem most relevant as to addressing the films tone):
Its a much more grounded, gritty, realistic movie than the last couple movies. If I had to say, the tone of it would be somewhere on the spectrum between Spider-Man and Chronicle. The other movies were even further on the spectrum of being goofy and fun than Spider-Man.
Josh Tranks instincts are to be as realistic and grounded and real with this stuff as possible. In many ways I would say its definitely more of a drama than comedy.
Its still in the direction of Spider-Man. Its not like Dark Knight. And even Chronicle has a lot of fun in it. Were treating this as the origin of the Fantastic Four so in future movies youd have them on sort of splashier adventures to some extent but in this one we tried to ground the science as much as possible and make it feel like it could take place in our world before it cantilevers into other worlds."
And from another interview:
"Its a double-edged sword because you dont have people saying, Why are you rebooting something good? and you also have people saying, Why bother? The core fans were not wild about the original movies, and nor was I. Last summer, Emma Watts at Fox called me on the set of Days of Future Past and said, We really want to do a new Fantastic Four. I said to her, Im interested but it depends how you want to do it. She said, Talk to Josh Trank. We were shooting the Washington D.C. finale sequence in Days of Future Past and I talked to Josh, and he had such a clear vision of what he wanted to do with the film that was so different from the other moviesit was grounded, real, gritty, and what it would really be like if you went through a transformation and lost control of your body. That, coupled with him wanting it to be a coming-of-age movie, felt fresh to me."
"The tone of this movie will feel as unique as when you saw Iron Man, X-Men, or Batman Begins for the first time. Its not as goofy as the first movies; it has humor in it, but the humor is much more real and comes from character, not pratfall jokes. Its a much more dramatic film than it is a comedy. I would say it falls somewhere between Raimis first couple of Spider-Man movies and Chronicle."
And on the Torch casting:
"Yeah, the way we went about casting Fantastic Four was, Who is the best actor for the part? We didnt go into it saying we wanted to cast a particular race for any part. Josh had worked with Michael on Chronicle and Im a big fan of Michaels, so we knew he was the best actor for that part. We knew casting an African-American Human Torch would be news, but I can tell you its something that Stan Lee loves, and I can also tell you that having been on set and seeing Michael bring him to life, hes really spectacular. Hes doing something really cool with the character that I think will become the iconic Johnny Storm."
I'm sure he has said more on it all, but I would guess it will be more of the same (more usage of the term
'gritty' no doubt).
In a bit of a contrast, Mark Millar, whose role as creative consultant seems to have somewhat disappeared and been taken over by Kinberg, had earlier said this:
I dont think you could do Fantastic Four and try and make it grim and gritty.
And on the Torch:
"I think it would be tricky to have one member of the Storm family black and one white. Is he adopted? I don't know how you would play that."
Doesn't take the Scooby gang to solve why Millar's no longer the spokesman for this puppy.
Like I said, its there for anyone interested enough to read it, and you can all make up your own minds as to what is being said there and what that means for this film, if anything.
