Ken Atchity, producer of ‘The Meg’, dies at 82

Kenneth Atchity, a prominent film producer and literary agent, has died at the age of 82. He passed away on Monday due to kidney failure at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Atchity was best known for producing the blockbuster shark thriller ‘The Meg’ (2018) and its sequel ‘Meg 2: The Trench’ (2023), both starring Jason Statham. His extensive film credits also include ‘Joe Somebody’, ‘Hysteria’, ‘Life or Something Like It’, and the documentary ‘The Kennedy Detail’.

Beyond cinema, Atchity was a prolific author of over 20 books and a literary manager who founded the imprint Story Merchant Books. Before his career in Hollywood, he was an assistant professor of English and comparative literature at Occidental College and served as a Fulbright professor at the University of Bologna. He also worked as a communication engineer at AT&T Long Lines, where he helped design the Green Network connecting NASA's research centers.