LOS ANGELES — FOR roughly a decade, ever since the DVD market started to implode, movie studios have been investor afterthoughts. Hits? Misses? Ho-hum, and back to the cable networks. With its steadily climbing subscriber fees, the Wall Street theory has held, cable would always save the day for the media conglomerates.

But at the Walt Disney Company, at least for the moment, that conventional wisdom has been flipped. Movies — in particular one movie, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” — have started to drive Disney’s stock.

The question is whether that is sustainable.

In August, with Nielsen estimating that ESPN had 92 million subscribers, down from 95 million a year earlier, and Disney acknowledging a “modest” erosion, Disney shares plunged 22 percent, to $95.36 from $121.69, dragging down the whole media sector. But even as some media companies struggled to regain ground, Disney shares quickly bounced back. Disney closed on Wednesday at $118.67.

Friday brought new ESPN turbulence. After Disney released its annual report, repeating those subscriber numbers, shares briefly fell by 4 percent. But Disney was already recovering by the session’s end, closing at $115.13, down 3 percent.