diff --git a/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py b/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py
index 06d04c8f0..0330b0b34 100755
--- a/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py
@@ -71,6 +71,7 @@ from .utils import (
     write_string,
     YoutubeDLHandler,
     prepend_extension,
+    replace_extension,
     args_to_str,
     age_restricted,
 )
@@ -1332,7 +1333,7 @@ class YoutubeDL(object):
                     return
 
         if self.params.get('writeinfojson', False):
-            infofn = os.path.splitext(filename)[0] + '.info.json'
+            infofn = replace_extension(filename, 'info.json', info_dict.get('ext'))
             if self.params.get('nooverwrites', False) and os.path.exists(encodeFilename(infofn)):
                 self.to_screen('[info] Video description metadata is already present')
             else: