"I thought I had the rights to The Lord of the Rings. I don't know how Jackson ended up with the rights"

Ralph Bakshi's quote is likely describing the film adaptation rights of J.R.R. Tolkien's unique, The Lord of the Rings. Bakshi was an American animator and director who had actually formerly worked on a 1978 animated adjustment of the book. He was most likely amazed to learn that the rights to the novel had been acquired by Peter Jackson, a New Zealand filmmaker, for his own live-action adaptation of the novel. Bakshi's quote suggests that he had actually thought he had the rights to the unique, and was amazed to find out that Jackson had actually obtained them rather. This might be due to the fact that Bakshi had actually previously dealt with an adjustment of the novel, and may have assumed that he had the rights to it. Nevertheless, it is likely that the rights had actually been acquired by Jackson before Bakshi had the opportunity to do so.