Producer and director Steven Seagal filmed almost 40 minutes of footage for the environmental message at the end of this movie, and planned to use it all in the final cut. After pressure from Warner Brothers and a disastrous preview screening, where audience members booed, laughed, and made obscene gestures for the entire sequence, Seagal cut the final scene down to about seven minutes.
There were allegations that Sir Michael Caine and producer and director Steven Seagal didn't get along. In Caine's memoir, "The Elephant To Hollywood", he said he liked working with Seagal and the crew, but hated filming in Alaska, even joking that "On Deadly Ground" was an apt title.
The final scene, when Forrest Taft gives the speech about the oil companies and air pollution, was originally eleven minutes long. Audiences complained that it was overlong and preachy. The scene was re-edited before release.
When Danish stuntman and actor Sven-Ole Thorsen met producer and director Steven Seagal on the set, Seagal asked Thorsen to kick him, to show what Thorsen was capable of. Thorsen hesitantly kicked Seagal, who caught his leg and threw him to the ground. Seagal asked Thorsen to kick him again, giving it his best shot. Thorsen kicked Seagal as fast and hard as he could, and Seagal fell to the ground. When shooting a scene together a day or two later, Seagal hit Thorsen in the throat, leaving Thorsen unconscious for three or four seconds. It looked so realistic that Seagal decided that Thorsen's character, Otto, had died, and his remaining scenes were cut from this movie.