Will ESPN drag on Disney or will the force win out?

Disney really needs that force right now as its stock continues to dip amid ESPN controversy.

Despite smashing cinema records over its opening weekend for Disney“Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” investors remain skeptical. The stock dropped about 1 percent Monday; it’s down nearly 13 percent from its 52-week high.

“The proportion of revenues that Disney’s been deriving from its cable nets, including ESPN, has been declining relative to the studios,” Rich Tullo, senior financial analyst, Albert Fried & Co., said to CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Monday.

But Tullo holds a new hope for the mega business and says that even if Disney cable nets go down as much as 3 percent, the decline will be offset by growth, which he pegs at “between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, owing to Star Wars and other films.”

Investors got skittish about Disney earlier this year, after the media company admitted to a loss in cable subscribers.

“What I’m trying to get through is this huge amount of noise around the entire ESPN issue,” said Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Shares Investments. “Because it represents so much of Disney’s free cash flow.”

But bulls believe investors do not have much to worry about.

“Most consumers are not rational; they’re lethargic. ESPN is going to be just fine,” said Larry Haverty, associate portfolio manager at Gabelli Multimedia Trust, on Monday. “We’re talking about a consumer brand here of unprecedented strength: ‘Star Wars,'”

While the franchise has had a successful weekend thus far, it won’t open in the Chinese market until January; analysts consider that opening an important measurement for the movie’s overall success.

“With the Chinese government as a [Disney] partner, it’s going to do everything it can to protect the franchise and to generate cash flow, and I think that means cracking down on piracy in China,” Haverty said.