SEAGAL UNDER SIEGE : Too Deadly for Critics to Preview?

Steven Seagal’s directorial debut, “On Deadly Ground,” is teetering on a cliff’s edge performance.

Apparently Warner Bros., which is distributing the eco-thriller, nixed any pre-release press screenings before Thursday’s celebrity premiere and the film’s opening on Friday.

The official line from the studio is that last month’s Northridge earthquake caused damage to its post-production facility and to the film’s negative, housed in that building. It suffered water damage as a result.

But inside sources say that’s only partially true and that the picture suffers from the box-office star’s neophyte role as a director. They say Warner Bros. didn’t want film critics to take early jabs at the movie, something studio officials flatly deny. Still, insiders and the studio expect “Deadly” will have a fairly strong opening based on Seagal’s huge fan following and prior box-office prowess:

His scorecard to date: 1988’s “Above the Law,” $18.9 million; 1990’s “Hard to Kill,” $47.4 million; 1990’s “Marked for Death,” $46 million; 1991’s “Out for Justice,” $39.7 million, and his biggest, 1992’s “Under Siege,” $83.6 million. It was that film that gave Seagal the muscle to persuade the studio to let him direct a picture.

Some critics at the studio snickered at Seagal’s 10-minute diatribe at the end of the movie about saving the environment. The length of that soliloquy was clipped quite a bit, according to Warner insiders.

Sources say Warners was also worried about the competition this weekend, when “Deadly” was to open against Paramount’s basketball movie “Blue Chips,” which stars Nick Nolte and was directed by William Friedkin.*