As warring Take That pop stars, Gary Barlow and Robbie Wiliams have had one of the rockiest relationships in music history.

Now Robbie has reignited the long-running feud with the release of a new biopic that originally painted his old bandmate Gary in a less-than-flattering light.

In fact, Gary, 53, was so disgruntled when he saw an early copy of the script for the Better Man biopic that he called up Robbie to complain that it made him look like Hollywood’s ultimate supervillain.

The unconventional biopic, which will be released on December 26, tells the rise of Williams’ pop career and struggles with addiction with the singer portrayed as a CGI monkey.

Robbie, 50, said: ‘We had a fractious relationship. And in the script, I speak how I spoke and I think how I thought back then, which wasn’t complimentary to Gaz, and we sent him the script.’

‘And he rang me and he’s a grown-up and there was no effing or pointing fingers, and he’s like, “Rob, I come off worse than Darth Vader in the first half.”’

The phone call, which referenced the villain at the centre of the Star Wars franchise, forced the hitmaker to mellow the portrayal.

Speaking at a Deadline preview press screening for the movie in LA, the Angels singer did defend himself, insisting director Michael Gracey wrote and directed the film.

Robbie also said that he was the main bad guy of the movie and not Gary.

The Let Me Entertain You musician said: ‘I’m quite happy to be the main villain in this movie. There were many villains in this movie until we legally couldn’t have many villains in this movie. And now the only villain in this movie is me.’

The singer lamented that his first manager got off easy, and said early drafts of the script took Robbie’s side in his feud with Gary.

Gary and Robbie’s factious relationship dates back to the 1990s, when Robbie branded his bandmate a ‘clueless w****r’ and quit Take That in 1995.

He then battled former pal Gary for pop domination, before his rival ended up walking away from music.

However the pair made peace around 2009 leading them to reform Take That for a momentous comeback in 2010.

But Robbie has admitted that ‘there will always be a scar’, telling BBC Two’s Boyband Forever documentary this week: ‘We’re mates now and I love him, and our relationship is 95% healed. There’ll always be a scar, but he loves me. I love him.’

Last year, Robbie revealed that he disliked his Take That co-star Gary Barlow so much that he became ‘vengeful.’

The singer admitted that he ‘wanted to make him pay’ as he was deeply jealous of his career and talents.

Speaking on the Netflix documentary, Robbie Williams: Raw. Honest. Real, he also apologised for his behaviour towards Barlow.

Williams, 49, says: ‘I disliked Gary the most because he was the one that was supposed to have everything and the career and I wanted to make him pay. I was vengeful.’

He also described Barlow as ‘cold,’ adding: ‘It seemed to be one person managing Take That and it was Gary Barlow – it was all geared around him.

‘And as a young person I would have been jealous of that. A lot of me resented him. I was going home from those days thinking this is weird and uncomfortable. It’s lord of the flies stuff.’

Williams also apologises to Gary for famously saying that Barlow was ‘dead’ and calling him a ‘p****’ on stage. He says: ‘I’m sorry that I treated Gary like that.’