Actually, I picked the first CGI movie from the 90s, and it just happened to be good and very cheap.
But more importantly, the other half of my point was that $250 million ought to be enough to pay for a high effort production. It's not like "well Blender is free now so of course theatres are flooded with amateur CG films since their production has been commoditized".
Correcting for inflation (I used this tool by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm), 30M USD in nov. 1995 would have a purchasing power equivalent to roughly 62M USD in feb. 2025. This is below half the budget of Moana 2 (150M USD, released in nov. 2024) for instance.
I would never use the official inflation numbers (they underestimate the actual inflation). It's easy to see that the most expensive movie ever made back in the day has a much lower budget that the most expensive movie made now, even adjusted for the official inflation rate.
But more importantly, the other half of my point was that $250 million ought to be enough to pay for a high effort production. It's not like "well Blender is free now so of course theatres are flooded with amateur CG films since their production has been commoditized".