diff --git a/resources/lib/PlexAPI.py b/resources/lib/PlexAPI.py
index 65db0967..f03b0d80 100644
--- a/resources/lib/PlexAPI.py
+++ b/resources/lib/PlexAPI.py
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ from xbmcvfs import exists
 import clientinfo as client
 from downloadutils import DownloadUtils
 from utils import window, settings, language as lang, tryDecode, tryEncode, \
-    DateToKodi, exists_dir
+    DateToKodi, exists_dir, slugify
 from PlexFunctions import PMSHttpsEnabled
 import plexdb_functions as plexdb
 import variables as v
@@ -2395,9 +2395,14 @@ class API():
             log.error('Could not temporarily download subtitle %s' % url)
             return
         else:
-            r.encoding = 'utf-8'
-            with open(path, 'wb') as f:
-                f.write(r.content)
+            log.debug('Writing temp subtitle to %s' % path)
+            try:
+                with open(path, 'wb') as f:
+                    f.write(r.content)
+            except UnicodeEncodeError:
+                log.debug('Need to slugify the filename %s' % path)
+                with open(slugify(path), 'wb') as f:
+                    f.write(r.content)
             return path
 
     def GetKodiPremierDate(self):
diff --git a/resources/lib/utils.py b/resources/lib/utils.py
index 27354384..ee1631d1 100644
--- a/resources/lib/utils.py
+++ b/resources/lib/utils.py
@@ -221,6 +221,16 @@ def tryDecode(string, encoding='utf-8'):
     return string
 
 
+def slugify(text):
+    """
+    Normalizes text (in unicode or string) to e.g. enable safe filenames.
+    Returns unicode
+    """
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = unicode(text)
+    return unicode(normalize('NFKD', text).encode('ascii', 'ignore'))
+
+
 def escape_html(string):
     """
     Escapes the following: